Kohl’s tests AI analytics tool to help store associates work faster

Kohl’s is pushing artificial intelligence past the shopper-facing novelty stage and into the store’s daily workflow. The company says associates are beginning to test a new AI analytics tool powered by Google Cloud’s Conversational Analytics in Looker, giving them a way to ask simple questions about product trends, categories and brand performance without piecing together multiple reports by hand.

That matters because the company is not framing AI only as a customer convenience. Kohl’s says its broader shopping agent, built with Google Cloud’s Gemini Enterprise for Customer Experience, includes a Gift Finder and image-based shopping help for budget-conscious shoppers, planners and last-minute buyers. The same technology push is reaching the selling floor and back office, where the practical promise is speed: fewer manual lookups, faster answers and less time spent digging through dashboards before a manager decides what to reorder, mark down or promote.

Google Cloud describes Conversational Analytics as a chat-with-your-data tool powered by Gemini for Google Cloud and grounded in Looker’s semantic model for governed self-service business intelligence. In plain terms, that means associates can ask questions in ordinary language and get answers shaped by company-approved data structures. For workers, that can reduce the training burden of learning complex reporting systems, but it also makes the work more dependent on whatever metrics management chooses to surface.

Kohl’s has been heading in this direction for years. In 2018, the company said it was investing in data, analytics, chatbots, voice search and image search to create a simpler customer and associate experience. The current rollout shows that the goal has shifted from experiment to workflow: help people get to an answer faster, then expect them to act on it with less delay and more consistency.

For Big Lots workers, the lesson is less about AI hype than about how retail jobs are changing underneath the payroll. In a company under severe financial pressure, tools that speed up decisions around inventory, labor and markdowns would likely be sold as efficiency measures, not perks. Big Lots filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on September 9, 2024, later said it would close all remaining stores after already shutting about 400 locations, and a January 2025 report said a last-minute sale could keep roughly 200 to 400 stores open. Against that backdrop, any new system that helps managers see what is moving, what is stuck and where attention should go will shape not just operations, but the level of autonomy workers still have on the floor.