Retail leaders paving the way: Stories from the front lines<\/p>\n
The agentic commerce era isn\u2019t just a concept \u2014 it\u2019s already being built. From department stores to leading luxury houses, some of the world\u2019s most iconic brands are using Google Cloud to create fresh takes on retail experiences that reflect how consumers shop today and how they want to shop in the future. To thrive in the agentic commerce era, global retailers must produce high-fidelity, brand-aligned content at a pace that matches shifting consumer trends.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Authentic Brands Group (Authentic) \u2014 owner of more than 50 iconic brands including Juicy Couture, Nautica, and Reebok\u2014 is solving this through its newly launched<\/a> \u201cAuthentic Intelligence\u201d platform. By integrating Google Cloud\u2019s most advanced media models, such as Imagen 3 for photorealistic imagery and Veo 3.1 for cinematic video, into its intelligence stack, Authentic\u2019s 15+ specialized AI agents help nearly 600 employees dramatically accelerate workflows. These tools enable the rapid generation of everything from social media assets to high-end campaign concepts while ensuring every piece of content remains true to each brand\u2019s unique DNA. The impact is quantifiable: In early testing, Reebok ad creatives enhanced by Authentic delivered up to 60% higher return on ad spend (ROAS) compared to traditional images.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Home Depot announced<\/a> a major expansion of its partnership with Google Cloud, ushering in a new era of agentic retail powered by Google\u2019s Gemini models. This initiative transforms the customer experience through an advanced Magic Apron agent, which offers conversational project planning localized at the store level for precise aisle-level navigation and product knowledge with support for chat or voice in thousands of languages. The collaboration introduces AI-powered materials list generation for Pro contractors and equips thousands of associates with Gemini Enterprise tools to streamline complex workflows. By moving toward a future where technology anticipates needs before a project even begins, The Home Depot is setting a new industry blueprint for seamless, “AI-first” interconnected retail.\u00a0<\/p>\n Gap Inc. plans to use AI tools to reimagine retail <\/a>across its iconic portfolio of brands, including Old Navy, Gap, Banana Republic, and Athleta. The collaboration provides Gap Inc. with a unified, AI-powered platform, which it expects to fuel innovation and greater efficiency across product creation, customer experience, and employee enablement using Google Cloud technologies, such as Gemini, Vertex AI, and BigQuery.\u00a0<\/p>\n Honeywell is modernizing<\/a> the retail aisle through its new Smart Shopping Platform, developed in partnership with Google Cloud and 66degrees. Powered by Gemini, this platform transforms the physical store into an intelligent environment, providing retailers with real-time insights into in-store compliance, inventory accuracy, and associate productivity. By bridging the data gap between the shelf and the back office, Honeywell is helping retailers create an “online-to-offline” experience where shoppers enjoy the same ease of discovery in a physical store that they expect on a mobile app.<\/p>\n The Est\u00e9e Lauder Companies and Jo Malone London built the future of personalized beauty<\/a> with their AI Scent Advisor. Developed with Vertex AI and Gemini, this sophisticated conversational agent recreates the brand\u2019s signature in-store consultation for the digital world. By allowing customers to describe scents in their own natural language, the agent maps personal preferences to Jo Malone\u2019s complex olfactory data, providing bespoke, expert-informed recommendations that move a shopper from curiosity to a confident purchase.\u00a0<\/p>\n Building tomorrow, today<\/p>\n At Google Cloud, we are helping retailers create a\u00a0 \u201csuperpower\u201d that turns fragmented digital and in-store engagements into a single, effortless experience.<\/p>\n We are committed to providing the infrastructure that gives retailers their most valuable resource back \u2014 time \u2014 and ensures that every brand, from global icons to digital natives, has the tools to thrive in the next generation of commerce. For more information and demos of these new solutions, visit the Google Booth #5507 at NRF! We have exciting news from across Google too\u2014check out the blog<\/a> from Ads & Commerce including the new Universal Commerce Protocol and Business Agents, and from Wing<\/a> on their drone delivery expansion with Walmart.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Retail leaders paving the way: Stories from the front lines The agentic commerce era isn\u2019t just a concept…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":228743,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,363,364,111,139,69,644,145],"class_list":["post-228742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-retail","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}