Kohl’s rolled out a Mother’s Day Gift Finder, a conversational AI shopping agent built with Google Cloud’s Gemini Enterprise for Customer Experience, according to Retail Dive. The tool asks about a recipient’s hobbies, interests, and style, then serves up product ideas. Shoppers can also upload an image to find similar products, review product information, and add items to their cart without leaving the chat.
In other words: guided gift search, now with a conversation box.
It’s not just shoppers getting the AI treatment. Kohl’s also built an internal AI analytics tool for employees using Google Cloud’s Conversational Analytics in Looker. Staff can use it to compare product trends or look into what might be driving results — assuming the underlying data is tidy enough to survive conversational querying.
Kohl’s is joining a familiar retail pattern: AI for gift guidance on the front end, AI for work simplification on the back end. Retail Dive points to previous examples, including Simon’s 2023 “HolidAI” tool, which used ChatGPT 4.0, and Target’s gift finder launched last November.
The timing also lands inside a broader business reset. Kohl’s recently released an update on its long-term turnaround strategy, which some analysts said was light on details. It has also added more value cues, including a sub-$10 in-store “Deal Bar,” and launched Sea and Skye, a private label for teen and tween girls.
In its latest earnings, fourth-quarter sales fell nearly 4% year over year to $5 billion and comps dropped almost 3%, while net income rose 160% to $125 million. Helpful shopping assistant, meet complicated retail backdrop.
Read more at Retail Dive.