Agentic AI is increasingly being used to reimagine the customer experience for many retailers across the region. In Australia, Bunnings, which operates more than 500 stores across Australasia, has developed an agentic shopping assistant, named ‘Buddy’, which was launched during the recent Easter weekend to ‘impersonate’ its red-vested staffers.
Now, instead of a flesh-and-blood expert, Buddy offers a seamless digital hand-holding straight from the customer’s device, fielding multi-step tasks, answering curly questions, and helping customers locate whatever obscure bolt they are
looking for.
The agentic shopping assistant is the first of its kind from an Australian retailer to use Google Cloud’s new Gemini Enterprise for Customer Experience (CX). The AI project was implemented and completed in just over six weeks, marking a significant step forward in modernising the retailer's customer experience.
Not content with just reading your wish list, Buddy can also process photos of the customer’s scrawled requirements. It’ll suggest recommended items in the cart, guess what else the customer might need, juggle complicated requests, and take into account both the customer’s budget and preference of power tools.
Rolling out on bunnings.com.au, Buddy is set to supplant the existing Ask Bunnings AI tool. This “conversational” upgrade, as explained by Bunnings, marks a leap forward in turning browsing, planning, and purchasing into one unified, and, hopefully, smoother, journey.
Vivek Pradhan, Bunnings’ General Manager of Data and AI, admitted that the company’s first stab at a proprietary ‘Ask Bunnings AI’ chatbot had left “customers juggling browser tabs, bereft of image processing, and stuck with recommendations that couldn’t be finessed.”
“Gemini Enterprise for Customer Experience was announced in January 2026 at the National Retail Federation show in the United States. Shortly thereafter, we met with Bunnings at our offices. From our initial meeting to deployment was only a matter of weeks; Buddy is now live,” said Darshan Kantak, VP of Product, Applied AI, Google.
The AI tool is not static, it will continue to be enhanced for customers.
Pradhan revealed that Bunnings has been on a digital transformation journey for about six years, and the debut of Buddy is the latest move in its quest to continue improving the customer experience.
Despite the robotic revolution, Buddy is programmed to echo Bunnings’ trademark practical wisdom, feeding off the retailer’s ‘how‑to’ content trove and house-trained staff expertise.
“It has been configured with Bunnings-specific guardrails and extensively tested to make sure it delivers practical, responsible advice consistent with how our teams support customers in-store,” said Pradhan.
That combination of trusted Bunnings content, embedded safeguards and rigorous testing gave us confidence. Buddy was ready to launch. Like any AI tool, it’s not “set and forget” - we continue to monitor performance and improve the experience as customers use it.
- Darshan Kantak, VP of Product, Applied AI, Google.
In case you miss dealing with real people, Bunnings’ team members remain at the customer’s disposal, said Managing Director Mike Schneider, adding that Buddy isn’t about replacing the store’s staff but empowering them, while appeasing customers who expect “more bells, whistles, and AI fairy dust.”
“Our customers take on projects big and small, and Buddy aims to help them get cracking,” he said, touting responsible AI and expanded engagement options as core goals.
Pradhan added that the store has also equipped staff with AI-powered Zebra devices to assist customers in navigating the complex warehouse aisles more efficiently and with greater clarity. This approach also allows employees to dedicate more time to customer interactions, contributing to an increase in average order value.
According to Bunnings. Buddy’s other innovative features include product searches, price and stock checks, DIY advice, and handholding for project plans, all capped with the existing online checkout. Its arrival signals Bunnings’ accelerating leap into data-driven retail and shows how the store is streamlining its operations.
