Attributed: Leah Balter, Wesfarmers / Former Bunnings CIO and Chief Transformation Officer
I was delighted to join the Microsoft AI Tour Sydney today to share some of the ways we’re exploring and deploying the latest AI advances across the Wesfarmers Group.
Many of our retail businesses, which include Bunnings, Officeworks, Kmart, Priceline and Catch, have been exploring the use of AI to drive efficiencies, support team members and enable improved and more personalised customer experiences. At Bunnings and Kmart and our teams have been working closely with Microsoft to explore how AI can support our operations.
This process has identified ways our divisions can enhance our customer service, make team roles more rewarding and grow our business, all the while aligning with our strong commitment to innovation and the responsible use of AI.
At Bunnings, for instance, our team has focused on 34 promising use cases from an initial list of more than 130 possibilities. One of the most developed of these is a new AI-powered information service for our in-store team called ‘Ask Lionel’, which has already been developed and trialed with the aim of providing fast access to data, insights and announcements to help our team better respond to customer queries.
Bunnings is trialling numerous other innovations too, including using AI to communicate with non-English speaking customers via live-chat, delivering more personalised marketing offers and making other content recommendations. Internally, the business is exploring using AI to help answer team safety and payroll queries, onboard new team members and develop training tailored to different stores.
This proactive and innovative approach is being implemented across other Wesfarmers divisions too. For example, we’ve held several large-scale trials of GitHub Copilot that have resulted in over 700 developers now using the AI-assisted programming capabilities.
Bunnings, Kmart and WesCEF have also enjoyed being early adopters of Microsoft 365 Copilot, driving significant productivity gains across many business functions. Today, the Group has over 1,000 Copilot users with plans to expand over the coming year.
We are also piloting Conversational Commerce capabilities, integrating Azure Open AI within a number of our brand’s digital channels, with great feedback, promising results and plans to take these capabilities live to customers in 2025.
Our group’s retail businesses are also exploring how AI can be used to improve image generation, create and test new product concepts, streamline customer service interactions, analyse complex business data using natural language queries and more easily access the troves of valuable DIY, how-to and other useful information we hold.
Another key building block is our development of a comprehensive AI operating model and related governance principles. These have been informed by Microsoft’s Responsible AI Standards and provide a framework for responsible AI, including data privacy, security and risk mitigation.
We are also paying close attention to education and training requirements, in particular our ability to maintain continuous learning and improvement as we introduce AI-powered services and tools across our business. This includes leveraging existing resources and models through the Microsoft Enterprise Skilling and AI Academy programs.
Like other large businesses around the world, we recognise that the technology is only part of the AI puzzle and that its introduction must be complemented with relevant training and other effective policies. We’re looking forward to seeing what we can achieve in the coming years.
About Wesfarmers
Wesfarmers is one of Australia’s largest listed companies and employs approximately 120,000 team members across Australia and New Zealand. Our diverse businesses span home improvement, outdoor living products, building materials, office and technology products, health, beauty and wellbeing products and services, manufacturing and distribution of chemicals and fertilisers as well as the development of an integrated lithium project.
