Shareholders at Walmart on Thursday declined, according to preliminary voting tallies released after the retailer's annual meeting, a proposal asking the company to produce a report on how its use of artificial intelligence is affecting the health and safety of its workforce. The proposal had been filed by the investor group United for Respect.
The vote unfolded while Walmart intensifies its competition with Amazon in e-commerce, pursuing service goals such as completing deliveries to customers within 30 minutes. The drive to speed fulfillment is paired with a broader roll-out of automated systems and AI tools across Walmart's stores and warehouses.
Ava Williams, an overnight employee at a Walmart location in Spokane, Washington, addressed the meeting in support of the shareholder measure. Williams said she had "repeatedly tried to sound the alarm" about outcomes she attributes to AI-driven employee standards, citing "injuries, burnout, and high turnover." She added, "We’re expected to meet impossible timelines," and described pressure on employees to skip certain tasks, including sanitizing shelves and checking for expired products. "There is zero accountability for the tools that now impact our safety," Williams said.
Walmart representatives defended the company’s approach. Josh Allen, who leads frontline training at the retailer, described the firm's AI stance as centered on what he called "responsible use and human judgment." During an AI training presentation at Walmart’s annual Associates Week event, Allen said, "AI learning should build confidence, not pressure."
As context for its decisions on technology and workforce planning, Walmart notes its scale as a large employer. The company's 2026 annual report lists about 1.6 million employees in the United States, making it the nation's largest private employer by that measure.
Walmart has been accelerating investments in AI and automation across its fulfillment network and in stores. The firm indicated it is deploying tools described as "self-healing" inventory systems to monitor stock levels and replenish merchandise, and it is using predictive demand forecasting to better align inventory with customer orders. Those changes are accompanied by automation in logistics: more than 60 percent of Walmart stores now receive freight from automated distribution centers, and over 50 percent of the company's e-commerce fulfillment volume was automated, the company reported late last year.
The retailer has also incorporated AI into training and in-store quality checks. At a media demonstration on Wednesday, a bakery manager at an Arkansas Sam's Club showed a tool that evaluates the quality of freshly baked pies from photos and assesses the neatness of piped inscriptions on cakes.
Walmart's finance leadership has pointed to tangible operational benefits from these investments. Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey said that the company’s technology spending has helped drive down shipping costs, which he said have been consistently falling in the 30 percent range for several quarters. In a May post-earnings call with analysts, Rainey reported a 150 percent increase in same-day and next-day units sold from Walmart fulfillment centers.
Alongside the AI-related proposal, preliminary voting also showed shareholders rejected a separate request that Walmart produce a report on how changing U.S. immigration policy and enforcement could affect its operations. That proposal was submitted by SOC Investment Group and flagged concerns related to recent policy shifts under President Donald Trump.
The immigration-focused proposal argued that measures such as canceling humanitarian parole visas had led to job losses and staffing shortages in some areas. It noted that hundreds of workers at Walmart supercenters in Florida and Texas had work permits abruptly revoked. The filing also called attention to a sharp rise in the H-1B visa fee, from $215 to $100,000, contending that the fee increase would affect Walmart's ability to hire for roles tied to its web platform and infrastructure.
The submitters further warned that a pause on visa grants to foreign-born commercial truck drivers could increase operating costs for Walmart by tightening the driver labor pool.
Walmart responded to these concerns by saying it had not observed meaningful operational or supply chain disruptions stemming from immigration-related policy changes. Donna Morris, Walmart’s executive vice president and chief people officer, told investors that the company’s use of employment-based visa sponsorships represents a very small percentage of its U.S. workforce. Morris said those visas are primarily used for specialized roles and are complementary to other workforce-planning approaches.
Both defeated proposals underscore the tensions investors and company management face as Walmart navigates faster delivery expectations, wider automation of logistics and fulfillment, workforce impacts, and evolving immigration policy. The preliminary voting results indicate shareholders were not convinced that the requested disclosures would be necessary or beneficial at this time.
For now, the company continues to expand automation across its network while defending the role of human oversight in the deployment of AI tools.