Wordle Hint Today Mashable appears in the same news cycle as a bigger consumer issue: Walmart says it will not pursue dynamic pricing after a Groundwork Collaborative report argued that its patents and data practices could support personalized pricing. The company’s denial landed on Oct. 5, the same day the report was published.
Dan Bartlett, Walmart’s executive vice president of corporate affairs, said the report mischaracterizes the company’s pricing practices and technology. In his open letter, he wrote, “Your comments about Sparky also draw unfounded conclusions. We do not use AI to upcharge our customers.”
Groundwork Collaborative and Sparky
Groundwork Collaborative’s report, The Walmart Watchtower, said several Walmart patent applications describe data the company can collect about users, including songs on a playlist and a credit report. It also said surveillance pricing means using customer behavior and characteristics to price the same products differently, then pointed to examples such as charging new parents more for baby products or charging more for mayo if someone is already buying tuna.
The report also focused on Sparky, Walmart’s in-house AI shopping assistant. It said customers who use Sparky spend more than those who do not. For shoppers, the practical issue is not the label on the system but whether the company can tie browsing, purchase history, or other personal signals to different prices for the same item.
Walmart says no dynamic pricing
Bartlett said Walmart has committed not to pursue dynamic pricing. Dynamic pricing, as described in the report, changes prices within a 24-hour period depending on conditions such as the weather; surveillance pricing goes further by linking price to the customer rather than the market. That distinction is the heart of the dispute, because one approach changes prices broadly while the other would make shoppers worry about being sorted into different price buckets.
Lindsay Owens, president and CEO of Groundwork Collaborative, pushed back in a statement of her own. “The confusion around Walmart’s pricing practices is of its own making. Walmart says one thing in its damage-control letters to customers, another to its investors behind closed doors, and a different thing entirely to the United States Patent and Trademark Office.” She also said she released a new analysis of Walmart patents so Americans can decide for themselves.
Groundwork’s broader pattern
Groundwork Collaborative’s challenge comes with history. The group was part of a Dec. 2025 Consumer Reports investigation into Instacart’s price tests, and that investigation said the tests increased customers’ grocery bills. Instacart ended the tests after public outcry from customers and politicians, which gives this latest fight a familiar pattern: companies testing how far pricing technology can go before shoppers push back.
What remains in front of Walmart shoppers is a narrower question than the headlines suggest: whether the patents Groundwork cited point to future pricing tools or only to data and recommendation systems that can feed them. The company has said it will not use AI to upcharge customers; Groundwork says the patents and collection practices point in the opposite direction. That gap is where the story now sits.
