Social Rocket
Walmart is significantly expanding its commerce intelligence platform Scintilla 2027. Brands will soon be able to analyse marketplace data alongside the rest of their Walmart.com business. At the same time, the AI assistant Marty is gaining more analytical depth, while Scintilla is being linked more closely with Walmart Connect and operational systems.
The new features were presented at Walmart's Inspire 2026 and explained on September 16 in the Walmart Newsroom. Digiday additionally reported on September 18 about the planned functions and their significance for brands and retailers.
Marketplace data comes to Scintilla
From 2027, brands that sell both as first-party suppliers and via the Walmart Marketplace are set to get a more complete view of their Walmart.com business. Until now, marketplace data has not been integrated into Scintilla in this form.
An important caveat: according to Digiday, the announced extension initially does not apply to pure marketplace sellers. It is aimed at brands that already have a direct supplier relationship with Walmart and also sell on the marketplace.
For these companies, Scintilla thus becomes more of a central data interface. Sales, customer behaviour and other business signals should be viewable in context rather than sitting in separate reports.
Marty is to move from summaries to recommended actions
The AI assistant Marty for Scintilla is also being expanded. Today, the AI helps, among other things, to explain metrics, highlight changes in reports and summarise results.
In future, the conversational AI is to access Walmart's first-party data more deeply, investigate complex performance questions, proactively report changes and help build custom dashboards. Walmart describes the goal as a faster path from signal to decision. Walmart Data Ventures also told Digiday that Marty should do more to help identify the causes of performance changes and derive possible next steps, for example in advertising or supply chain.
Data and Walmart Connect move closer together
For marketers, the connection between insights and media is especially relevant. Scintilla Insights Activation already links findings from Scintilla with Walmart Connect. Users can thereby trigger advertising measures directly from an analysis.
This fits Walmart's broader advertising strategy. Walmart Connect is already being expanded beyond classic retail media and is intended to unlock more CTV, social and offsite budgets. Scintilla provides the proprietary data and insight layer for this.
This connection is also crucial for measurement. Retail media networks are increasingly under pressure to demonstrate their impact not only within their own system, but to make it more traceable. DoorDash now has its incrementality measurement independently certified, while Ace Hardware combines retail media with weather data and incrementality models.
From reporting to commerce intelligence
Walmart's direction is therefore clear: Scintilla is meant to function less like a classic reporting tool and more like an operational decision-making system. Data is brought together, AI prioritises anomalies, and the insights should be able to lead directly to actions in media, inventory or store execution.
For brands, this can speed up analysis work. At the same time, a central question remains: recommendations from a closed retail ecosystem still need to be tested against your own business goals, margins and independent measurement. That a platform recommends a next step does not automatically mean that step creates incremental value.
The 2027er Scintilla extension is therefore above all another signal of how closely first-party data, AI and retail media are converging. Walmart wants not only to provide data, but to significantly shorten the path from analysis to activation within its own ecosystem.