Forty-three years ago, Darlene Lane got her start at Walmart, working in the billing department for a regional distribution center. Now a manager of learning and development for the company, Lane was a guinea pig for how the company would train associates of all levels throughout the company on AI.Last week, Walmart launched its certification program for associates with OpenAI after launching a similar certificate program with Google earlier this year. Lane was the first person to complete the new OpenAI certificate. She said that, since then, she has used AI as a “thought partner,” asking for ideas on activities she could include as part of a training program, for example.
“I’m probably the least technical person that you will ever meet,” Lane told reporters, as part of a presentation in Springdale, Arkansas during Walmart’s Associates Week, near its headquarters in Bentonville. “I was very hesitant at first when we got AI, because it was new technology; I was scared to use it,” Lane added. “It was easy to go through, it was easy for me to understand; and if I can get it and understand it, 99.9% of people out there can.”
Through partnerships with OpenAI and Google, Walmart executives are training associates to use AI widely throughout the organization. For example, store managers can create digital dashboards for scheduling, or merchandising associates can turn dense text into useful graphics, Daniel Danker, evp of AI acceleration, product and design for Walmart, said in a LinkedIn post. Still, the company is curtailing redundant use cases in the name of cost.
