How Home Depot, Macy’s and Ulta Beauty are Leveraging AI for Customer-Facing Convenience

Retailers are reshaping the shopper journey with AI-powered tools, and like everything else about this technology, it’s happening incredibly fast — and producing results.

For example, The Home Depot has deployed AI-powered phone agents capable of understanding a customer’s issue within 10 seconds — getting them to a solution 4X faster than navigating traditional phone menus.

The AI agent, built on Google Cloud’s Gemini Enterprise for Customer Experience, also can initiate service requests, send product links to a customer’s pre-filled cart and help customers complete purchases right on their phones within minutes. “Nobody likes getting trapped in a phone menu.

When a customer calls us, they just want to get help as quickly as possible,” said Jordan Broggi, EVP of Customer Experience and President of Online at Home Depot in a statement. “Using customer service AI voice agents, we’re moving away from ‘Please listen to these options,’ and toward ‘How can I help?’

AI does a tremendous job at recognizing customer intent and taking direct action to help complete a purchase or even start a service request. And of course, if they need to speak with an associate, we’ll quickly connect them.”

Google provided updates on a number of new products, use cases and implementations at Google Cloud Next 26, spotlighting the impact of its solutions for a range of retailers. Macy’s Speeds up Solution Development Timetable The greater speed enabled by AI also applies to the solution development side.

Macy’s, for example, had been working on an agentic commerce solution called “Ask Macy’s,” for nearly six months when Gemini Enterprise for Customer Experience (CX) became available. “We realized we needed to pivot immediately,” said Chad Westfall, SVP of Technology Product Development and Customer Experience at Macy’s in a blog post.

“The pace of change and innovation in AI left no room to stand still, so we adapted, and frankly forwent some of our usual processes in order to go after this with all deliberate haste.” Macy’s set a new target launch date — the Shoptalk conference on March 24, 2026, which was less than six weeks away.

The Macy’s and Google Cloud teams implemented the Gemini solution and integrated it with Macy’s existing systems, developing the interface and deciding which features to include. The team also incorporated feedback from Macy’s associates who tested early versions of the agent, making its responses warmer and more helpful.

Ask Macy’s launched in beta within just four weeks to a small percentage of the site’s users as well as thousands of Macy’s associates. Macy’s scaled up to 50% of site users within a day, and then raised it to 100% one week later.

The multimodal agent can handle both text and images and includes a virtual try-on feature: customers who upload a photo can use Ask Macy’s to see how their prospective purchase will look on them, and it can even provide different backgrounds such as an office, restaurant or park.

Ask Macy’s also incorporates customer feedback data and information from the product catalog, and the retailer promises that in the near future, the agent will be able to warn shoppers if products run large or small and recommend a more appropriate size, as well as related items for cross-selling.

Ulta Beauty Supports Agentic Capabilities Across Google Surfaces Ulta Beauty has made a significant investment in AI solutions and will be rolling out agentic commerce within AI Mode in Search and the Google Gemini app, seeking to make the beauty shopper journey more seamless, personalized and intuitive.

The retailer is leveraging Google’s open standard Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), which supports checkout and other functionality critical to agentic commerce.

“Ulta Beauty engaged early with UCP because we see a clear shift in how guests are discovering and shopping for beauty, with AI playing a much bigger role in that journey,” said Mike Maresca, Chief Technology and Transformation Officer at Ulta Beauty in a statement.

“We believe AI has the potential to elevate personalization to a new level and in partnership with Google, we’re helping turn that potential into experiences that better serve our guests.”

“By integrating UCP, Ulta Beauty is removing friction and helping their customers purchase right at the moment of discovery in AI Mode in Search and the Gemini app,” said Ashish Gupta, VP and GM of Merchant Shopping at Google in a statement.

In addition to supporting AI-powered commerce on Google surfaces, Ulta has rolled out its own Ulta AI shopping assistant on Ulta. com and will be expanding it soon to the Ulta Beauty app.

Built on Gemini Enterprise for Customer Experience, the assistant also will leverage insights from the retailer’s 46 million-plus loyalty program members, helping shoppers navigate the retailer’s expansive digital assortment.

“Our shopping agent connects the breadcrumbs of intent and inspiration to guide the customer journey,” said Darshan Kanta, VP, Applied AI a