The Home Depot enjoys prime visibility in artificial intelligence (AI)-powered platforms, and announcements over the past year show not only how Home Depot is using AI to drive discovery, but to improve fulfillment and conversion as well.
As recently as July, the online traffic-monitoring service Similarweb released a report showing that Home Depot ranked above other retailers, including Ikea and Lowe’s, by volume of AI-platform referrals that it received during the month of June. Home Depot took the No. 1 spot in Similarweb’s “Home and Garden” category that month, attracting 1.2 million referrals from AI sources, including 1.0 million from ChatGPT alone.
As holiday shoppers increase AI use in 2025 and web traffic from AI sources to ecommerce sites continues to rise, Home Depot stands to benefit if it can convert that traffic into sales and customer satisfaction. Here are three ways in which the retailer is using AI to accomplish those goals.
How Home Depot is using AI for fulfillment
During an August earnings call with investors, Billy Bastek, the executive vice president of merchandising at Home Depot, said “faster delivery speeds are resonating with customers and driving greater engagement and sales.”
On the same call, Edward Decker, chairman, president and CEO at Home Depot, elaborated on some of the specific ways that AI and machine learning are enabling that success. According to Decker, Home Depot deals with “200-plus market delivery operations,” covering “big and bulky product and appliances,” as well as “ship from best location” and store-related options.
“So we’re putting all those into an opportunity set to optimize delivery for the customer from which node is going to have the quickest delivery time at the lowest cost at the greatest chance of being on time and complete for the customer,” Decker explained.
In Decker’s words, “that’s all the machine learning and AI we’re putting into effect to make that happen,” leading to “improvement in our on-time and complete delivery.”
“That’s giving our sales team more confidence to sell,” he assessed. In addition, he sees these efforts helping to improve customer retention.
Extending back through Home Depot’s supply chain, at least some of its AI-based capabilities stem from its use of Google Cloud, including its BigQuery data warehouse technology, according to an announcement about the companies’ contract renewal in 2024.
Magic Apron’s use of AI
In May, Bastek credited Home Depot’s suite of generative AI tools, called Magic Apron, with “strong customer engagement, contributing to growth in online conversion.” The tools, which were unveiled in March, refer to Home Depot’s home improvement knowledge base, as well as large datasets and more, based on the company’s expertise and product information.
Using that data, Magic Apron provides a chatbot-style experience for customers, providing what the retailer compares to “having your trusted store associate on hand.”
“Home Depot customers have always relied on the expertise of our orange-aproned associates in the aisles of our stores to answer questions and help them solve problems,” said Jordan Broggi, executive vice president of customer experience and president, online, at Home Depot, when Magic Apron was announced. “Magic Apron is designed to bring that same expertise to the digital world, leveraging our proprietary knowledge base to support our customers and give them the confidence to tackle their home improvement projects, anytime, anywhere.”
AI assistance for professional renovation planning
Beyond Magic Apron, Home Depot’s use of product data and AI extends to other apps as well. The company is reportedly working with renovation platform Kai to link the 3.5 million items in Home Depot’s inventory to Kai’s tools, Fast Company reported in October.
The effort builds off of Home Depot’s in-house tool, RenoWalk, which Home Depot is reportedly sunsetting, as it transitions resources to use with Kai. Kai’s customers include large institutional housing investors and operators.
The Home Depot Inc. ranks No. 4 in the Top 2000 Database. The Digital Commerce 360 database ranks North America’s largest online retailers by their annual ecommerce sales. Home Depot is also the top-ranked retailer in the Top 2000’s Hardware & Home Improvement category. Digital Commerce 360 projects that Home Depot’s online sales will reach $26.57 billion in 2025.
Home Depot web sales by year
Do you rank in our databases?
Submit your data and we’ll see where you fit in our next ranking update.
Sign up
Stay on top of the latest developments in the online retail industry. Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 Retail News. Follow us on LinkedIn, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter), Facebook and YouTube. Be the first to know when Digital Commerce 360 publishes news content.
FavoriteThe post Ecommerce Trends: How Home Depot is using AI appeared first on Digital Commerce 360.
from Digital Commerce 360 https://ift.tt/ZxcA2UI
0 Comments