It’s 12 days before Christmas. The house is bedecked with ornaments, wreaths, and candles, and the presents sit underneath the tree. For Melissa and Kurt Bolton and their son, Shaun, the holidays have been the same for years—except for how they decide what to buy during the biggest shopping period of year. A decade ago, they would have been on their devices, separately searching for deals on the Walmart app using their smartphones. Tonight, virtual reality allows them to window shop together as a family from the comfort of their home.

Melissa, using a VR headset, sees a television with an 8K high-resolution screen she’s been interested in buying. At the push of a button, she adds it to her shopping cart. Ready for the holidays, they settle down on the couch and watch a movie—instead of spending the rest of the evening hunting for deals.

Years ago, customers had to be physically in the store to learn about newly-stocked items available for the holidays. In 2022, Melissa has an artificial intelligence-driven avatar that’s embedded in the store’s app. It serves as a personal assistant and virtual shopper that saves her time by compiling a list of items that have been newly added and that match her preferences. On her phone, a flashing Shopping List icon appears on the app. She sees perfume, a copper skillet, and a new T-shirt which have been preselected for her and presented in 3D. She can use augmented reality to “try on” the new T-shirt—whenever and wherever it’s most convenient for her.

Kate doesn’t have to worry about taking inventory or managing every detail of advance orders that customers have placed online. In the stockroom, an automated grid of mobile carts picks up merchandise and brings pre-ordered items to multiple stations throughout the store. At one station, Walmart personal shoppers sort and assemble Melissa’s order, which includes the 8K television, perfume, and skillet. Thousands of orders can be prepared during the week, which means associates can spend less time walking the aisles in search of products and more time helping customers outside of the stockroom. As Melissa arrives with Shaun, she gets an alert that she’ll be able to pick her items up when she leaves the store.

Rather than trying on armloads of clothing in a dressing room, Melissa can check out several dresses at once—and at the push of a button. In the past, customers had to hunt for their specific sizes and settle for whatever styles and colors were available. In 2022, virtual mirrors can retrieve any customer’s body measurements after that information has been scanned into and stored in a database. The mirror shows the customer what items are available (or even currently unavailable, but able to be ordered), and how they fit. Melissa finds one dress that she’s excited about, but it’s not in stock. She hits the Buy button on the mirror anyway. The dress will be delivered to her home once the next shipment comes to the store.

As Melissa and Shaun walk toward the exit, their shopping cart, now full of goods, is ready to follow them to the car. On a future shopping trip, Melissa can pick up items pre-ordered online from the store’s automated vending machine-style locker. Using a code, customers can open the locker and just grab their merchandise during their next shopping trip. It makes the online shopping process even more convenient for buyers.

The Walmart of the future will be an efficient, innovative workplace in which technology assists with routine tasks, allowing associates to interact more with customers and add a personal touch to the shopping experience. Kate has teams stationed around the store, ready to answer questions about the season’s hottest merchandise.

Four years from now, the purpose of shopping will be fundamentally the same as it is today: buying and selling goods. And yet, technology has the potential to unleash the biggest disruption to how people shop in centuries, making the experience fun, intuitive, and time-saving for shoppers and associates alike.