This isn’t talking about price gouging. Or at least, not that second part of the title. The full quote is:

“when customers engage with Sparky, their average order value jumps 40%.”

This is talking about ignorant customers getting talked into adding more to their order than they originally planned, by an AI that is designed to encourage people to buy as much as possible. Walmart isn’t changing the price of products that are ordered through the AI tool.

Still shitty behavior but it’s just another marketing tool and marketing has been finding ways to influence customers to buy more things since the dawn of time.

A far more concerning quote from the article for me would be:

Walmart has filed a patent for technology that can unmask anonymous cell phone data after a single store visit, then track where shoppers live, how they commute to work, and what restaurants they frequent