Dive Brief:
- Walmart appointed the CEO of Grammarly (now Superhuman) Shishir Mehrotra to its board of directors, according to a Thursday press release.
- Mehrotra will serve on the board’s technology and e-commerce committee, as well as its compensation and management development committee.
- He brings over 25 years of technology experience to the appointment, including co-founding an AI platform and serving as YouTube’s chief product officer and chief technology officer.
Dive Insight:
Mehrotra’s tech background ties into Walmart's larger efforts to adopt AI across the business.
“I have long admired Walmart’s ability to innovate while staying true to its core values, and joining the Board as the company builds for an agentic AI future is a rare opportunity," Mehrotra said in a statement. “This era is the most significant technological shift I’ve seen in my career, and I look forward to working with the team to shape the future for the millions of people Walmart serves.”
The mass retailer announced a slew of AI-related tools and initiatives in 2025.
Walmart in July debuted a new AI framework for the entire business that centers around four “super agents” and unifies its approach to the technology, aiming to avoid fragmented innovation across the company. Since then, Walmart has expressed confidence in its customer-facing AI agent Sparky becoming more important for shoppers and also launched new tools for marketplace sellers.
The company has also inked a deal with AI powerhouse OpenAI to create custom certification trainings for employees and started selling through ChatGPT’s Instant Checkout shopping feature.
Mehrotra’s appointment comes a few weeks before Walmart veteran John Furner is set to take over the CEO position from Doug McMillon. When Furner’s appointment was announced in November, the emergence of artificial intelligence in retail was specifically mentioned by McMillon.
“He’s uniquely capable of leading the company through this next AI-driven transformation,” McMillon said in a statement at the time. “He’s a merchant, an operator, an innovator, and a builder.”
Correction: In a previous version of this article, Shishir Mehrotra's current position at Superhuman was misidentified. He is the CEO of Superhuman.
