Walmart is upbeat about using technology and is not afraid of getting it wrong.

“There’s a lot of optimism for what technology can do to help [front-line employees] become better associates, get more efficiency faster, have more tools that they can access,” John Furner, president and CEO, told a press pool during Walmart’s Associates Week in Bentonville, Arkansas, last week.

Around 1.3 million US Walmart associates now carry devices called “fresh touring agents” that guide them through their day, surfacing the best next action, showing store layouts, and helping them locate products faster. Still, company executives said the US retailer’s philosophy is still “people-led, powered by technology” multiple times throughout the week.

In July 2025, Walmart added three new AI agents to work behind the scenes with Walmart employees, supply chain partners (a chatbot called Marty), and developers to consolidate workflows, and drive operational efficiency and faster innovation across the company.

“I think it’s important to note that in terms of agentic commerce or agentic operations, any way you look at it, it’s early, and there’s a lot that we have to learn,” Furner said. “We have to figure out what works and what doesn’t, and some things that seem promising will work, and they’ll work as we expect, and there’ll be other things—just like the whole history of our company—that we will try that may not work the way we thought, or may not work at all.”

Keep reading here.—VC

As Norm, Frasier, and the rest of the Cheers gang knew well, sometimes you want to go where everyone knows your name. Now data from Toast, the restaurant software platform, and Resy, the reservation platform, shows just how important regulars are to restaurants.

Just 7% of regulars—or “multi-visit diners,” in restaurant parlance—account for as much as 50% of order volume, according to the report.

Besides their outsized spending power, there are plenty of reasons for restaurants to keep regulars happy, including their propensity for making reservations.

Keep reading here.—AAN

When brands ink deals with spokespeople, what they surely don’t want to happen is what occurred after Chinese smartphone maker Huawei hired Wonder Woman actress Gail Godot in 2018. Godot shared a Huawei commercial she starred in on Twitter (now X) that included a stamp revealing it was sent “via Twitter for iPhone.” Although Godot subsequently deleted the tweet, explained it was sent from a publicity assistant’s iPhone, and subsequently sent more tweets from her Huawei device, the eggy-faced PR damage was done.

One brand that seems likely to avoid such a mishap is Duer, the Vancouver-based self-described “performance jeanswear” brand, which has hired Jesse Marsch, head coach of the Canadian men’s national soccer team, as a brand ambassador for the duration of the World Cup.

Keep reading here.—AAN

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