DICK’S launches AI coach, a model for Target store support

DICK’S Sporting Goods is trying to digitize what good floor selling looks like. Its Coach by DICK’S tool is an agentic AI-powered conversational experience inside the mobile app that gives tailored product recommendations, training tips and product education based on an athlete’s goals, skill level and preferences.

The system is built with Adobe Brand Concierge and DICK’S proprietary content and knowledge, and it is scheduled to begin rolling out in June 2026. Adobe said the approach blends trusted brand content, first-party customer data and agentic AI to create personalized conversations, while DICK’S is using it to make product discovery more intuitive and keep shoppers moving through decisions with less friction.

That matters well beyond sports retail. The real test for AI in stores is not whether it can answer a question; it is whether it can capture the best parts of human expertise and make them available at scale. In that model, technology handles repetitive lookups, basic comparisons and routine guidance, while store workers keep more of the nuanced work that requires judgment, product feel and trust. For front-line teams, that could mean fewer dead-end handoffs between an app and an associate, and more time spent helping a guest who actually needs a person.

Adobe said AI traffic to retail sites jumped 693% year over year during the 2025 holiday season, a sign that consumers are already using AI to search for products and deals. DICK’S move suggests that retailers now see a race to own the experience before the shopper ever reaches the register, fitting the broader shift toward personalized, real-time advice instead of static product pages.

Target has already staked out similar ground on the store side. On June 20, 2024, the company said its Store Companion GenAI chatbot would roll out to hundreds of thousands of team members across nearly 2,000 stores by August, making Target the first major retailer to say it was bringing a GenAI tool to store team members nationwide. Target said Store Companion answers process questions, coaches new team members and supports store operations management.

The strategy widened in 2025 and 2026. On November 19, 2025, Target announced a partnership with OpenAI, and OpenAI said ChatGPT Enterprise had been rolled out across Target headquarters and was being used by 18,000 employees. Then on March 3, 2026, Target said it would make an incremental $2 billion investment in 2026, including more than $1 billion in capital expenditures and $1 billion in operating investment, with money going to store remodels, payroll and training, technology and AI. For Target, the lesson from DICK’S is clear: the most useful AI may be the kind that makes frontline work more informed, more efficient and more human.