Insider Brief
- Helios AI has won Walmart’s 11th Annual Open Call and signed a deal to provide climate risk and price forecasting software, marking the first AI software company to receive the “golden ticket.”
- The Open Call event, held at Walmart’s headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., saw over 500 entrepreneurs pitch their products, with Helios AI becoming the first software winner in the event’s history.
- Helios AI’s platform helps Walmart assess medium- and long-term climate risks in its agricultural supply chain, with new features including future climate risk predictions, historical pricing insights, and customizable data visualization tools.
PRESS RELEASE — Helios Artificial Intelligence, a leader in supply chain resilience for the agri-food industry, today announces that it is a winner of Walmart’s 11th Annual Open Call and has signed a deal (the “golden ticket”) to provide its climate risk and price forecasting software for Walmart, becoming the first-ever Walmart Open Call winner in the software category.
First “Golden Ticket” Winner in AI Software
Walmart held its 11th Annual Open Call event at its home office in Bentonville, Ark. in September 2024, attracting entrepreneurs from across the country to pitch their products to representatives in hopes of landing a spot on store shelves and online. More than 500 entrepreneurs were selected to make their pitch and Helios AI became the first software winner in the history of Open Call.
With more than 4,600 Walmart stores in the United States and thousands of produce SKUs needed on a daily basis, maintaining a sustainable, uninterrupted supply chain is a business imperative for the world’s largest retailer. Helios created the first AI platform that predicts the price and availability of agricultural commodities using climate risk. With Helios’ platform, Walmart can evaluate the medium- and long- term climate risks facing its global agricultural supply chain to secure sustainable sourcing.
“Walmart is leading the way when it comes to leveraging artificial intelligence to strengthen its supply chain,” said Francisco Martin-Rayo, co-founder and CEO of Helios. “Helios’ winning the ‘golden ticket’ is not only a great testament to our technology, but also proof that there are urgent needs from procurement teams to climate-proof their supply chains – especially those at the most globalized levels.”
Pushing The Boundaries of What’s Possible with Price Forecasting
In tandem with this new partnership, Helios AI is also announcing a new suite of features that will empower agri-food procurement teams and supply chain managers to make even smarter, faster and more informed decisions.
Some of the key enhanced features include:
- Future Climate Risk Predictions: One of the most exciting updates is the ability to provide climate risk and weather projections for an entire year into the future, helping customers estimate supply and prices with greater accuracy.
- Historical Pricing and Price Estimates for Fruits & Vegetables: Enterprise customers will soon be able to explore global, country and regional averages and ranges, interact with prices by origin region or shipping point, and even analyze prices by variety, grade and organic status — all standardized to one unit of measure for easy comparison.
- Choose Your Own Timeframe for Charts and KPIs: Another new addition is the ability to quickly change the timeframe of all your charts and KPIs, instead of pre-defined timeframes, allowing customers to choose any period they are interested in analyzing, starting at just one month and expanding up to view two full years.
Additionally, customers will have access to brand-new metrics for individual growing locations like days above 90°F, days below freezing, days with excessive rainfall and more. These insights make it easier than ever to determine if crops are getting enough chill days, facing a frost risk or experiencing flooding in the fields.
