KIngfisher's Mohsen Ghasempour: retail technology can be bought, trust has to be earned in an AI age
AI is constantly being touted as a competitive advantage but retailers must be wary of the exact opposite happening, particularly in terms of personalisation and loyalty. So says Mohsen Ghasempour, Chief AI Officer at Kingfisher, which owns B&Q and Screwfix in the UK and Castorama and Brico Depot in France and other markets.
In a LinkedIn post, he said: "Yesterday (4th June), I joined a Financial Times discussion on how the psychology of loyalty is changing in the AI era. It was a privilege to share the stage with Irene Scopelliti from Bayes Business School and Melissa Orchard from Unilever, expertly moderated by Stephanie Stacey (from the FT), and hear perspectives from across academia, consumer brands and retail."
He added: "While travelling down to London, something occurred to me that I had not really thought about before. For years, we have talked about AI as a competitive advantage. But I am wondering whether AI is starting to do the opposite and make some competitive advantages disappear."
By way of example, personalisation. A few years ago, it was a genuine differentiator and only a handful of organisations were doing it really well. Today, personalised recommendations, AI assistants and instant answers are everywhere.
"We are seeing this first hand across Kingfisher and our brands, B&Q and Screwfix to Castorama and Brico Depot, where AI is helping us create better experiences for customers at scale," said Ghasempour.
"What used to make organisations stand out is becoming much more common. As a result, customer expectations are rising. Customers do not just compare you with your competitors anymore. They compare you with the best experience they have had anywhere. A great experience in one industry quickly becomes the expectation in another."
As for loyalty, this used to be driven by memory. Customers built loyalty over years of interactions with brands. They remembered good service and trusted brands they knew. Today, AI is making great experiences easier for everyone to deliver.
Ghasempour commented: "Loyalty is becoming less about what customers remember from the past and more about whether you meet their expectations today. That is why I believe loyalty used to be driven by memory, but today it's increasingly driven by expectation."
He concluded: "The challenge for organisations is that convenience is becoming a commodity. When everyone can offer convenience, customers start looking for consistency. Consistency in the experience, consistency in the service, consistency in delivering what you promised. That is how trust is built, and ultimately, trust is what creates loyalty. Remember, technology can be bought, trust has to be earned. Perhaps the real competitive advantage in the AI era wont be AI itself. It will be trust!"
Google Cloud
Kingfisher and Google Cloud recently announced a multi-year partnership that aims to improve the online shopping experience for the former’s customers using agentic AI.
Kingfisher says it is looking to move beyond traditional keyword search on its sites and toward enabling proactive, AI driven shopping assistants.
The deal focuses on two key areas: Kingfisher is upgrading to Vertex AI Search for Commerce; the partnership with Google Cloud will help it unlock its extensive product and data catalogues to build Al shopping agents.
Thierry Garnier, CEO at Kingfisher, said: “Through this partnership with Google Cloud, we are enabling our customers to search for and buy home improvement products with AI, delivering a fully personalised and easy shopping experience.”
“These investments put Kingfisher at the forefront of AI powered shopping, delivering meaningful innovation as part of our expanding digital ecosystem, and helping us to meet rapidly evolving customer needs.”
Matt Renner, President and Chief Revenue Officer at Google Cloud, said: “Kingfisher is setting a new standard for how retailers can use innovative cloud solutions to solve complex customer problems. By integrating Google Cloud’s Vertex AI and preparing its data for an agentic future, they are creating truly helpful, conversational shopping experiences. We are proud to be a part of Kingfisher’s digital transformation across the UK and Europe.”
