Google Cloud and The Home Depot, the nation’s largest home improvement chain, have announced an extension of their multi-year relationship that will help the company accelerate its technology strategy and help customers complete their home improvement projects more efficiently and affordably. The two companies have collaborated closely since 2015 to innovate retail technology, all to improve The Home Depot’s associate and customer experience no matter where shoppers are, whether that’s in-store, online, or most often, a blend of those interactions.
“As one of the first major retailers to migrate our website to the cloud, Google has been a critical partner as we have built an interconnected shopping experience for our customers,” said Fahim Siddiqui, EVP and CIO of The Home Depot. “Our technology team looks forward to continuing to work closely with Google to remove friction for our customers when they shop with us and to stay on the cutting edge of retail technology.”
The extended partnership with Google Cloud involves The Home Depot accessing Google Cloud’s AI capabilities to enhance the customer experience and optimize operations. This includes leveraging technologies like machine learning, computer vision, and generative AI to enhance the retailer’s inventory management operations and improve its overall supply chain efficiency. In addition, the business will tap into future ecommerce enhancements to enable greater digital scalability. By harnessing Google Cloud’s AI innovation platform, Vertex AI, advanced model training capabilities, and advanced data analytics, The Home Depot aims to gain deeper insights into customer preferences and needs.
“The Home Depot consistently puts customers at the center of its technology transformation, and it is also redefining what it means to equip employees with powerful tools that get the job done,” said Matt Renner, President of Google Cloud. “Google Cloud is proud to support The Home Depot’s strategic technology initiatives, with projects on the horizon that will help it continue to lead the industry in AI-powered cloud innovation.”
Over the last several years, The Home Depot has worked with Google Cloud to introduce several new capabilities to make its customers’ interconnected experiences smoother, faster and more efficient and improve its operations.
- The launch of The Home Depot’s Sidekick mobile app, which uses cloud-based machine learning and computer vision to help associates keep in-demand products stocked, improving on-shelf availability and customer experience.
- The rollout of The Home Depot’s enhanced online search experience, Intent Search, which enables customers to find products faster with more relevant search results. The deployment of Intent Search has driven significant improvements in click-through rates, conversion and revenue per search.
- The success of The Home Depot’s mobile app, which Home Depot customers use not only to shop on their mobile devices, but also as a tool for wayfinding, account identification, loyalty, order pickup and more.
- Leveraged Google Cloud’s BigQuery data warehouse technology to make better decisions like analyzing data to make targeted improvements to The Home Depot website and making supply chain improvements based on analysis of years of data.
- Successfully handled an unprecedented surge in online customer demand in 2020 when online sales doubled, leveraging Google Cloud’s flexible and scalable technology infrastructure.
