Walmart hires Google veteran Sonia Wadhawan to lead AI partnerships

Walmart has appointed Sonia Wadhawan as Vice President of Partnerships for its AI Acceleration, Product & Design team. Wadhawan, a Google veteran with nearly 21 years of experience including roles in Generative AI Commerce Partnerships, joins the team under Executive Vice President Daniel Danker.

This leadership move aligns with a broader industry shift toward Agentic AI. While traditional AI has focused on localized optimization such as search and demand forecasting, the retail sector is moving toward enterprise orchestration. This involves using autonomous systems capable of reasoning and executing complex workflows across demand, inventory, and fulfillment in real time.

Economic projections highlight the scale of this transition. McKinsey estimates that agentic commerce could orchestrate up to $1 trillion in US retail revenue by 2030, with global impacts potentially reaching between $3 trillion and $5 trillion. Additionally, Morgan Stanley projects that spending on agentic enterprise technology could reach $385 billion by 2030.