Walmart CEO says that the retail giant and its AI shopping assistant aren't using personal information to set prices amid rollout of digital labels

Walmart is trying to calm a very specific fear as it rolls out digital price labels: that smarter pricing tools will mean different customers get different bills. John Furner, the company’s CEO, said in a statement on Walmart’s website that the retailer is not using personal information such as income, shopping history or a customer’s willingness to pay to set prices. He said that won’t happen in the future, either.

He drew a hard line. Walmart, Furner wrote, does not set prices based on who someone is or the time of day. Buying groceries or electronics on a hot afternoon, or needing something in a hurry, is not supposed to make the item more expensive. That language is clearly aimed at shoppers who hear “digital labels” and immediately think “surge pricing.”

The timing matters. Digital shelf tags are replacing paper ones at U.S. supermarkets, and they let stores change prices from a central computer instead of sending workers down the aisles with fresh labels. Walmart said in March that 2,300 of its U.S. locations already use the technology, and it expects it to be chain-wide within the next year.

Walmart is also extending the same promise to Sparky, its AI shopping assistant. Furner said the bot won’t be used to push prices up or hide cheaper options that fit a customer’s needs. He tied that directly to Walmart’s “every day low prices” model, while also acknowledging that prices do move when the company can pass along savings, or when it costs more to buy or transport an item.

The pressure is not coming out of nowhere. Consumer advocates, shoppers and lawmakers have grown more skeptical as digital price labels spread. Last month, the Federal Trade Commission said personalized pricing could run afoul of consumer protection law and warned companies that they need to disclose how personal information is being used to set prices.