On last week's earnings call, Walmart's CEO John Furner shared two numbers about Sparky, the AI shopping assistant inside the Walmart app: the number of customers using it is up 70 percent from last year, and customers who shop with it spend 40 percent more per order than those who do not. The sharper fact is that this is the second time in six months Walmart has put a Sparky number in front of investors, and the premium held while the user base grew.

This episode is about the difference between an AI claim and an AI metric, why the most useful AI numbers live in earnings-call transcripts rather than press releases, and the one question worth carrying into your next board meeting.

In this episode, Stephen Forte covers:

• The two numbers from Walmart's Q2 FY2027 call (August 20, 2026): Sparky users up 70 percent year over  ...