Helios AI software named winner in Walmart's Open Call event

Helios AI says it has signed a deal to provide its climate-risk and price-forecasting software for Walmart after being named a Walmart Open Call winner.

Walmart held its 11th annual Open Call event in September at its home office in Bentonville, Ark., 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, according to a news release.

With more than 4,600 Walmart stores in the U.S. 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, says Helios AI, which says it 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, the release said.

“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 for 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.”

In tandem with this new partnership, Helios AI is also announcing a new suite of features that it says 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, the company said, 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 and 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 a time frame for charts and KPIs — Another new addition is the ability to quickly change the time frame of all charts and KPIs, instead of predefined time frames, 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, the company says.