Artificial Intelligence in Retail Companies
We analyzed the enterprise AI use cases of 9 retail companies to understand trends, impact, and insights.
Retail companies' adoption of AI
Overview
Costco has steadily increased its adoption of AI technologies since early 2024, focusing on optimizing inventory management, employee scheduling, supply chain logistics, and enhancing customer personalization and experience.
Home Depot has steadily expanded AI adoption from early exploratory phases in 2021 and 2023, to large-scale deployment in 2024-2025, including over 175 machine learning and generative AI use cases by mid-2024.
Target has progressively integrated AI across retail operations from Q4 2023, starting with inventory accuracy and customer personalization, moving to generative AI-powered employee support tools by Q2 2024, and further expanding personalized shopping experiences and in-store efficiencies through late 2024 and 2025.
CVS Health has demonstrated increasing and deepening adoption of AI and machine learning from 2021 through 2025, with a clear focus on improving customer experience, operational efficiency, and personalized healthcare delivery.
Since 2019, Walgreens has progressively integrated AI technologies across healthcare services, retail operations, and supply chain enhancements, partnering notably with Microsoft and Nuance to improve personalized patient care and vaccine scheduling.
Kroger has progressively adopted AI technologies since 2019, starting with in-store innovations like the Kroger EDGE enhanced digital displays, moving through deployment of AI-powered self-checkout solutions reducing errors by 75% by 2023, and expanding into generative AI applications for marketing, recipe recommendations, and online marketplace management by 2024.
Lowe's has progressively integrated advanced AI technologies since 2022, starting with a digital twin prototype to empower associates, and accelerating into 2025 with widespread AI adoption including the launch of 'Mylow', an AI-powered virtual home improvement assistant built with OpenAI and integrated store tools like AI-driven self-checkout and virtual advisors.
Best Buy has progressively integrated AI technologies since Q2 2024, launching generative AI virtual assistants to improve customer support, including troubleshooting and order management, and partnering with Google Cloud and Accenture.
Walmart has progressively integrated AI across its operations from Q2 2023 through late 2025, scaling from improving inventory and customer experience to advanced agentic AI technologies like Sparky and autonomous super agents that transform customer support and workforce management.
52 Use Cases in Retail
| Company | Use Case |
|---|---|
| Walmart | Conversational Shopping Walmart partners with OpenAI to offer Sparky, a ChatGPT-based conversational AI shopping assistant, enabling customers to shop via chat for more intuitive experiences. generative |
| Target | Health Screening Target applies AI in healthcare through TARGET-AI, an approach leveraging electronic health records and multimodal data for context-aware AI electrocardiography deployment. traditional |
| Best Buy | Search Experience Best Buy is deploying AI-powered search enhancements on its website and app to provide customers with AI-generated prompts for more specific, conversational search queries, enhancing product discovery and customer confidence in purchase decisions. agentic |
| Kroger | AI Adoption Acceleration Kroger developed an internal AI factory in collaboration with 84.51° to accelerate safe and efficient AI model development and deployment across its business functions. agentic |
| Home Depot | Operational Efficiency AI agents help Home Depot optimize in-store operations and empower employees with relevant expertise, leading to better store performance and customer service. agentic |
| Costco | Retail Media Costco integrates AI to build and optimize its retail media network, enabling better audience segmentation and targeted marketing opportunities. agentic |
| Walmart | Customer Support Agentic AI super agents like Sparky are deployed to assist customers with reviews, purchase recommendations, and faster support resolution reducing resolution times by up to 40%. agentic |
| Target | Digital Marketing Target integrates AI to optimize ad placements across platforms such as Google, Meta, and Pinterest within its Roundel retail media network, increasing marketing efficiency and conversion. traditional |
| Walmart | Supply Chain Automation Walmart layers AI and automation technologies to detect, diagnose, and correct supply chain issues in real time, enhancing efficiency and accuracy globally. agentic |
| CVS Health | Care Management Using AI to automate administrative tasks, CVS reduced nurse call preparation time from 40% to 5%, allowing nurses to focus more on patient interactions and improving care management efficiency. traditional |