![]() "We're layering AI across every facet of our business," he said, adding that putting the employees from both Microsoft and Walmart in the same office will accelerate those efforts. Using internet of things and sensors, the company can track energy consumption and other factors to predict equipment failures before they happen, he said. For instance, the two companies are working on building internal chatbots, beginning with a chatbot that lets Walmart associates find a mentor or ask questions about their benefits packages. Johnson said Walmart is already deploying Microsoft's artificial intelligence software and other emerging technologies. This year, Walmart said it plans to hire more than 2,000 tech workers - most based at the company's Bentonville, Ark., headquarters - by the end of the 2018. In addition to its Austin office, Walmart also recently opened a computer vision and machine learning office in Dallas. But as it battles Amazon, Walmart is investing heavily in emerging tech, and CEO Doug McMillon has referred to Walmart as a “technology company." Analysts say the partnership with Microsoft is intended to help the two companies take on Amazon in one of its largest revenue streams - enterprise cloud services. Walmart is the world's largest retailer, with $485 billion in revenue in 2017, and more than 1.5 million employees nationwide. The team of about 50 employees is developing emerging technology such as machine learning, artificial intelligence, blockchain and internet of things technology for use across the company's global operations. Walmart opened the Austin hub this year at the former home of the Alamo Drafthouse. The team will be called 4.co for its location at Fourth and Colorado streets. When it opens in early 2019, a team of 30 technologists from Walmart and Microsoft will work together side by side in the space, which is currently under construction. The Walmart-Microsoft office will be at Walmart's existing technology hub in downtown Austin. "We want to create new and incredibly convenient ways for our customers to shop, and as technology cycles get shorter and shorter, we must increase our speed and agility." "Technology is changing the way people live, work and shop - and the pace of change is only getting faster," Johnson said. The team will also build new cloud applications aimed at changing the way employees work and customers shop, said Clay Johnson, Walmart executive vice president and enterprise chief information officer. The Walmart-Microsoft team is part of the companies' recently announced five-year cloud partnership, and will initially focus on migrating Walmart's thousands of internal business applications to Microsoft's cloud-computing platform Azure. ![]() In a move that will expand Walmart's Austin technology hub, the retail giant said Monday that it is opening a joint engineering office here with Microsoft. ![]()
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