Lululemon Athletica is keeping artificial intelligence front and center in its plans for 2026 — and the athleisure brand has been investing and hiring as it outlines how it is using AI to achieve results across customer service, merchandise and more.
In 2025, the company appointed its first chief AI and technology officer, naming Ranju Das to take on the role. That August, then-CEO Calvin McDonald said Lululemon saw “opportunity to further leverage AI and technology to advance our product innovation process, improve our agility and speed to market, and bring more engagement and personalization to our guest experience.”
Though McDonald stepped down from Lululemon’s CEO spot in January 2026, one of his interim successors, co-CEO Meghan Frank, has since reiterated where the retailer intends to put AI to use.
In fact, Franked noted during Lululemon’s quarterly earnings call on June 5 that the company was “implementing new technology, including AI-powered systems and automation to drive efficiencies across the enterprise.”
How Lululemon is using AI for customer service
Lululemon has worked with a variety of technology providers to bring AI into its customer-facing use cases. Google, Microsoft and Salesforce are among them. The retailer uses a virtual assistant on its ecommerce website to field customer inquiries 24 hours a day, and it has a history of bringing in AI experts to target improvements and efficiencies for its customer service flows.
The accounting and advisory firm KPMG, which worked with Salesforce and Lululemon to upgrade the retailer’s guest experience, noted in a case study that the “project has now set the stage for the company to responsibly explore how AI can help amplify its potential by enhancing service, unlocking new efficiencies, and shaping more connected guest experiences.”
Previously, Lululemon partnered with Wysdom.AI, Queen’s University and Microsoft to explore how it could leverage a digital wellness agent to provide wellness-related feedback to guests, with an end goal of putting “wellbeing tools” in front of 10 million people, according to the project’s description published by Canada’s Digital Technology Supercluster.
Ultimately, the project recap showed that Lululemon was able to boost its guest satisfaction score (GSAT) by 144% over three years, as of 2025, thanks to Wysdom’s platform.
Optimizing Lululemon’s ads with AI
In the meantime, Lululemon has seen success with its advertising optimization with AI as well. Google detailed in 2025 how its client had used learnings from the Canadian market to inform its ads internationally.
According to Google, Lululemon’s use of AI-powered Performance Max campaigns resulted in lower customer acquisition costs for its nonbranded campaigns in Canada. In addition, Google cited an 8% improvement in return on ad spend (ROAS) and a greater percentage of new customer revenue for the retailer.
Improving supply chain and go-to-market timelines
In March, Frank, who serves as Lululemon’s chief financial officer in addition to her interim co-CEO duties, told investors that the company was spending on AI solutions to enhance its go-to-market calendar.
“Key work streams are increasing efficiencies across inventory management, supply chain and nonmerchandise procurement and reducing complexity while capitalizing on automation and AI opportunities,” she stated.
If those efforts are successful, Lululemon could see its products arrive for sale six — or even 10 — months faster, she anticipated.
“And then in terms of the go-to-market calendar, so we are going from about 18 to 24 months, we’re expecting we could go to closer to 12 to 14 months over time,” Frank said. “Really focused on tools, process and systems and leaning into automation, including in the AI space to lean into that calendar.”
Lululemon is No. 23 in the Top 2000. The database ranks North America’s largest online retailers by their annual ecommerce sales and more. Digital Commerce 360 projects Lululemon ecommerce sales to grow 8.0% year over year in 2026.
Lululemon Athletica web sales by year
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