Walmart Wins Patents To Give Algorithms More Sway Over Prices

Walmart has secured patents for systems that use machine learning to forecast demand and automate pricing decisions, "pushing the U. S. retail behemoth into a debate over the use of algorithms to adjust product costs," reports the Financial Times. From the report: In January Walmart obtained a U. patent for a "system and method for dynamically and automatically updating item prices" to carry out markdowns in its ecommerce unit, a rapidly growing division that generated than $150B in sales last year.