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Walmart will let you shop for groceries using Google Assistant

The service can also adapt to your shopping habits.

Marrian Zhou Staff Reporter
Marrian Zhou is a Beijing-born Californian living in New York City. She joined CNET as a staff reporter upon graduation from Columbia Journalism School. When Marrian is not reporting, she is probably binge watching, playing saxophone or eating hot pot.
Marrian Zhou
2 min read
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Walmart Voice Order lets users shop for groceries using voice commands. 

Walmart

You'll soon be able to shop for vegetables at Walmart using voice commands. On Tuesday the retailer announced Walmart Voice Order, which lets customers buy groceries and order deliveries using Google Assistant .

Users can say, "Hey Google , talk to Walmart" to initiate their grocery lists and ask Assistant to add items directly to their cart, according to Walmart's blog post. Google Assistant has reached over 1 billion devices and is available in 80 countries and 30 languages. Those devices include smart speakers, smart displays, phones , headphones and more.

Walmart has been beefing up its online grocery business as part of a push to become a bigger player in e-commerce and take on Amazon. In March, the retail giant started expanding its online delivery service to over 100 metro areas nationwide. It's expected to eventually reach 40 percent of US households.

The retail giant isn't the only player in the grocery market. Amazon bought Whole Foods for $13.2 billion in 2017 and has started offering its Prime customers in a handful of markets free, two-hour deliveries of Whole Foods groceries. Target bought online grocery delivery startup Shipt in 2017 for $550 million, adding to the competition. 

Walmart Voice Order can also reference grocery items that customers have bought before. For example, if you purchased a bottle of 2% Omega milk before, you can just say "milk" and Google Assistant will know to order that specific kind of milk.

The Walmart service will roll out to customers over the next few weeks. 

Originally published April 2, 10:37 a.m. PT.
Update, 1:06 p.m.: Adds more information on the online grocery delivery market.