Wesfarmers & Google Cloud: Personalising Retail Shopping

Wesfarmers is strengthening its long-standing business relationship with Google by partnering with Google Cloud for its agentic AI solutions.

One of Australia's largest listed companies, Wesfarmers creates various products including health, beauty, home improvement, office and technology products, chemicals and fertilisers. 

Its businesses include Kmart Group, Bunnings, Officeworks, Priceline and OnePass, in addition to health, industrial and chemical businesses under the Wesfarmers brand name.

The aim of the partnership

The collaboration aims to tackle two of the greatest challenges in modern retail: growing customer expectations for fast, personalised service and increasing operational complexity across large, multi-brand businesses.

Wesfarmers and Google Cloud are doing this together, by using Google Cloud's agentic AI solutions to personalise shopping and enhance employee productivity. 

The partnership will mean an enhanced shopping experience with Wesfarmers' businesses for customers, with team members being able to focus their priorities elsewhere for the needs of the business.

Responsible scaling of AI

“As we expand the use of AI across areas such as forecasting, design and customer engagement, it’s important that we do so responsibly, at scale, and with the right partners,” says Rob Scott, Managing Director of Wesfarmers.

“Google Cloud’s capabilities will support the development of agentic solutions that enhance customer experiences and enable our teams to focus on higher-value work.”

Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud, adds: “AI is fundamentally changing the retail sector, enabling companies to develop deeper connections with their customers with every interaction.

“By integrating Google’s agentic AI across Wesfarmers’ iconic brands, we aren't just digitising the storefront – we are helping them reimagine every customer touchpoint and automate their internal processes.”

Customer experience

Wesfarmers will deploy Google Cloud's AI capabilities to improve both the customer retail shopping experience and the tools available to retail support teams.

The Australian conglomerate is building tools that help customers find products in a way that is easier for them, receive relevant recommendations and move smoothly from search to post-purchase by deploying Gemini Enterprise.

Wesfarmers is also developing Search with OnePass, which allows customers to search and shop conversationally across multiple retail brands in one place.

AI assistants will deliver faster, more personalised customer support through new developments, which have the capability to understand context across a conversation.

This sets them apart from traditional scripted chatbots, resulting in more successful outcomes for the customer.

Benefits for onsite team

Wesfarmers is putting advanced AI into the hands of its workforce by rolling out Gemini Enterprise across all retail divisions, enabling teams to analyse information faster, automate routine tasks and make better decisions across operations, customer service, engineering, marketing and finance.

The company’s broad deployment shifts day-to-day work toward higher-value outcomes, freeing employees to focus on innovation and judgment-intensive decision-making.

Google Cloud is delivering a custom AI upskilling programme for leaders and team members across Wesfarmers businesses, from store-based teams to support centres.

The overall goal of the programme, much like the partnership, is to help team members move beyond just using AI tools to actively identify new ways to improve daily work and create better experiences for customers.