How Walmart Plans to Upskill 1.6 Million Employees

Walmart has announced it plans to provide its 1.6 million employee base with new AI training. 

Staff working in the company’s corporate offices and in stores across the US and Canada will be offered training in the fundamentals of AI, as part of a partnership with Google. 

The announcement of this partnership follows the release of research conducted by Google and Ipsos, which found that just 14% of US workers have access to AI training. 

Donna Morris, Chief People Officer at Walmart, told Fortune: “We as big employers should be actively engaged in trying to equip our respective employees – in our case associates – to be prepared for a world that is AI enabled and automated or digitised".

The Google AI Professional Certificate

Google is partnering with Walmart as part of the launch of its Google AI Professional Certificate, which is designed to bridge the AI skills gap. 

Research from Boston Consulting Group (BCG) finds that many workers feel unprepared for AI due to a lack of training, contributing to a shortage of skilled AI professionals. 

According to Google, its professional certificate is designed to focus on the most critical areas of AI skills development – including communication, research, data analysis, content generation, planning and organisation and vibe coding. 

Walmart employees will also have practical, job-focused training as a result of this partnership, allowing staff to use these new skills within the context of their roles.

Donna said: “We want to make sure that we equip all of our associates with the best tools to allow them to be successful as Walmart continues to reshape as a people-led, tech-powered company. 

“But equally so that each of our associates has the ability to navigate their own careers.”

Walmart's upskilling investment 

This partnership comes as Walmart commits close to US$1bn in employee skills training and development as part of its skills-first approach, which aims to facilitate employee career growth. 

It is doing this across its corporate and frontline workers with dedicated initiatives in place – such as its associate-to-driver programme, which allows its hourly employees to earn their Commercial Driver’s License through an accelerated programme and join its private fleet of commercial drivers, who can earn up to US$110,000 annually. 

Walmart is also taking a skills-first approach when it comes to hiring – with 90% of its US roles not requiring a degree. According to the company, this is to remove ‘unnecessary barriers’ for career advancement. 

This also allows the company to fill key roles, with 75% of its salaried store, club and supply chain managers starting their careers as hourly associates.

Investing in its people is crucial for the company as it looks to advance its AI capabilities – with Walmart creating new ‘Agent Developer’ roles, which focus on building AI tools to automate tasks across the business.

Donna said: “We all have to change. That’s an ongoing need, but we all have the opportunity to lean into what that new future is.”

“I think new jobs will be created. I think new businesses will be created. I think the way we will do things will change. But that’s not to say that humans are going to be left behind.”