Mohsen Ghasempour, Group AI Director at Kingfisher, sat down with Katie Searles, to discuss how the home improvement giant is harnessing advanced technologies not only for their own operations but also their consumers.
As the owner of retailers such as B&Q and Screwfix, Kingfisher has previously developed a range of AI microservices to address specific issues, including product recommendations and demand forecasting.
Its Project Athena then acts as an orchestration framework, enabling the group to quickly build generative AI solutions by automatically selecting the right microservice to answer specific queries.
“You don’t need to build from scratch; you don’t need to re-invent the wheel. You can adjust or fine tune the existing models,” explains Ghasempour. “Project Athena sits on top of existing services – ChatGPT (OpenAI), Gemini (Google) – and then allows us to do that fine tuning for our banners.”
“We are not reinventing the wheel, we’re building that capability to deploy the existing technology in the way that is suitable for us.”
As well as deploying AI models for its operations and colleagues, Kingfisher has introduced AI-powered consumer tools. Its French home improvement chain Castorama has developed a generative AI-powered assistant for DIY customers, named Hello Casto. The assistant answers customers’ DIY queries and provides step-by-step advice on a range of home improvement projects, as well as tailored product recommendations.
Ghasempour highlights that offering new ways of shopping is part of preparing for a new generation of customers who prefer to shop differently using modern technology.
“ Last week, we launched our in-house visual search technology on the Screwfix app, called Screwfix Lens, allowing our customers to search for products using images. Today, all Screwfix customers can simply tap the small camera icon next to the search bar to find the products they need faster than ever. These technologies are all about making shopping more convenient.”
If a tradesperson takes a picture of a door handle, they know the part they are looking for, but this enables them to find the exact shape and design. This saves precious time, which for Screwfix customers is especially important, as for trade professionals time is money.
Advanced searches will also be useful for B&Q shoppers, who thanks to the introduction of a marketplace offering have over 1.5 million products available on diy.com. AI has also been key to the launch and management of such a range.
“Marketplaces are about giving customers more range to explore. But as you scale, you start facing new challenges which require putting new processes in place, like content moderation. If you open up your website to third parties’ content, you have to pay extra attention to the content moderation and review process ,” stresses Ghasempour.
Ensuring content quality when you have over 1.5 million SKUs is a sizable challenge, and one that could not be done without AI. With the marketplace continuing to expand rapidly, AI adoption will once again be deployed but with a human touch.
”There’s a huge human element, we have amazing colleagues to ensure on the backend that these things follow the right workflow,” adds Ghasempour. “It’s where to apply AI. We have a lot of initiatives that work around our content. How we can use AI to empower our vendors to publish products quicker; how we can suggest product content; how we can help them to assign to the right category.
“Easy AI, smaller AI microservices can have a huge impact on the vendor experience as well as selling on our platform. It’s a hybrid of AI technology and the right people in the loop making sure that it all comes together,” he concludes.
Ghasempour will be speaking at the Retail Technology Show on 03 April 2025. Register for his presentation: The Rise Of AI – How Kingfisher Has Enhanced Customer Experiences & Streamlined Business Operations And Efficiencies and the wider exhibition here.
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