What's up: The Apple Vision Pro is a pain in the neck, say users; Waymo recalls vehicles; Cisco raises its sales outlook.

Good morning, CIOs. AI is already transforming how consumers research products on search engines. The next evolution: shopping agents operating autonomously.

Walmart talked recently with the WSJ’s Isabelle Bousquette about how its preparations for when traditional online search and promotional tricks, perfected over the decades to draw human eyeballs, no longer apply. 

Walmart U.S. Chief Technology Officer Hari Vasudev says that the retail giant is developing its own shopping agents that customers can access on its app and website. But it’s also anticipating that consumers might bring their own.

Looking ahead, Vasudev predicts the establishment of an industry protocol that enables those third-party shopping agents to communicate with retailers’ own agents.

That’s a lot of agents and one can be forgiven for casting a critical eye on the whole idea of AI making shopping decisions. But  retailers be warned: The future may demand a complete rethink of the way products are advertised and priced. “It will be different,” emphasizes Vasudev. Read the story.

Google DeepMind this week unveiled AlphaEvolve, general purpose science AI capable of designing, testing and optimizing algorithms automatically. Powered by Google’s Gemini large language models, the agent is already in use improving the design of Google’s tensor processing units and its data centers.

Once predicted to be among the first careers to disappear under artificial intelligence, radiologists remain in high demand, the New York Times reports, citing a new study that sees growth in the field to continue through 2055. While hospitals are using the technology, clinicians are finding that AI works best when paired with a human expert.

Chat-powered shopping: What could go wrong? AI startup Perplexity announced a partnership with PayPal that lets users buy things directly in chat, CNBC reports. The announcement comes amid a flurry of activity within the space with Stripe, Visa, and Mastercard all offering tools integrating AI with payments.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff tells the FT that DeepSeek “is probably the most fundamental transformation this year.”

Early adopters of Apple’s Vision Pro have one thing to show for the year they’ve spent with their pricey purchases: regret. The $3,500 mixed-reality headset launched last year with great promise, but all these buyers got were dirty looks and sore necks, the WSJ reports. Apple hasn’t disclosed how many of the devices it has sold. 

Robotaxi operator Waymo recalled more than 1,200 of its vehicles because of a software defect. The recall comes after a number of minor crahses, the LA Times reports. The National Highway Traffic Safety Assn. in a recall notice  Wednesday said Waymo released a software update to resolve the issue.

China has convicted Zhao Weiguo, former chairman of Tsinghua Unigroup, on corruption charges giving him a de facto life sentence, the WSJ reports. The computer-chip conglomerate, once hailed as one of China’s chip-making champions, has undergone a series of bankruptcy reorganizations after defaulting on billions of dollars in bonds.

Cisco Systems raised its sales outlook after posting higher-than-expected profit and sales for its fiscal third quarter. "The momentum we are seeing with AI is fueled by the power of our secure networking portfolio," Chief Executive Chuck Robbins said Wednesday.

CoreWeave posted a wider loss and a five-fold jump in revenue to $981.6 million in its first earnings report as a public company​. During the quarter the company, which provides cloud infrastructure for artificial intelligence, struck a deal with OpenAI which is expected to add $11.2 billion to the revenue backlog, it said.

Tencent Holdings said Wednesday that AI capabilities have started to contribute tangibly to its advertisement and game businesses. The company, China’s largest by market capitalization, reported that  first-quarter revenue climbed 13% from a year earlier to 180.02 billion yuan, equivalent to $24.98 billion, topping analysts’ expectations.

The Justice Department is investigating UnitedHealth Group for possible criminal Medicare fraud, people familiar with the matter said. (WSJ)

President Trump’s bid to abolish birthright citizenship reaches the Supreme Court Thursday, when the justices will hold a special hearing on the administration’s request to set aside three federal court orders blocking implementation of his decree nationwide. (WSJ)

Qatar’s potential plan to provide a $400 million jumbo jet to the U.S. to use as Air Force One underscores how the tiny Gulf state has managed to diplomatically punch above its weight for years: It has a lot of money and is willing to spend it. (WSJ)

House Republican committees mixing the ingredients for the tax-and-spending policy megabill are focusing on ending green-energy tax credits and trimming Medicaid to find hundreds of billions in cost cuts. (WSJ)

The WSJ CIO Journal Team is Steven Rosenbush, Isabelle Bousquette and Belle Lin.

The editor, Tom Loftus, can be reached at thomas.loftus@wsj.com.