Andrew appeared on SFM and spoke to Tony Weaver about his latest partnership with Kingfisher on the Future of Retail and how consumers are starting to adopt AI tools to help them shop.
Interview Transcript
Tony Weaver
Now, artificial intelligence is getting in everywhere. How is it getting into di to retail?
Andrew Grill
Well, it is, you’re right. It is everywhere. People are using it to find, to explore, to get inspiration, and not Unsurprisingly, the research I’ve done with Kingfisher, they’re behind B and Q and screw fix. They’ve found, or we’ve found, that customers are actually quite happy to use AI, not just to search for products, but actually to buy them. Our research showed that more than half of people would be happy to spend up to 99 pounds or have it spent on their behalf by an AI agent, which surprised me, but it shows that AI is being adopted everywhere.
Tony Weaver
Because the old thing used to be you used to want to go and feel an item and touch it rather than let a computer choose it for you.
Andrew Grill
Well, I think people still do. And here’s the thing, that physical stores aren’t going away. They actually become more important in the research, I talked about a concept called phygital. This is physical and digital. And when it comes to home improvement, this becomes even more important, because if you’re doing a home improvement project and you want to have a new kitchen or look at how the garden might evolve, you actually want to go and have a look at how it might turn out. You want to go and talk to an expert, but also you probably want to talk to other people have done it before. So what Kingfisher and B and Q and screw fix have done? Their stores aren’t going away. They’re actually going to become more important as people are demanding better information go to the store and actually can see what they’re going to get when they have that project completed.
Tony Weaver
So how is AI doing this then?
Andrew Grill
Well, AI is becoming involved everywhere. What what Kingfisher have done? They’ve got a couple of different AI projects already. They’ve got a thing called lens that allows you to actually take an image of the product and then get information on that as well. But we will see it evolve. Is actually helping you find what you need. So you’ll go into a store. It might be that you’re looking around for a particular item, AI will direct you to that, but importantly, it’ll also empower the colleagues in the store, because they may not know where absolutely everything is, but they’re going to be using AI as well to help solve that problem on the spot. So AI is, you know, one of the things about AI, I say to all my clients, it does things at speed and scale. And if you’ve got 1000s, maybe millions, of different pieces of stock in there, you want to know all about them. And you know, want to know where they are, but importantly, you want to know what is the best product for your project.
Tony Weaver
It also gets things wrong. Occasionally
Andrew Grill
it does. But this is the thing about AI when it’s run by a company like Kingfisher, the source of truth is inside the company where we’re seeing AI getting things wrong is because it sources public information. When a company like B and Q or screw fix is in charge of that information, it means they can make sure it’s accurate. They can make sure it’s the version of the truth that you want. So what we’re going to see as companies adopt this for product information. They’re going to ensure that it is the source of truth, rather than just searching it for on the internet. So in fact, I’m going to want to believe what a company’s AI is telling me more than something that I find on the internet.
Tony Weaver
And of course, you might not necessarily know exactly what you want.
Andrew Grill
Well, that’s the thing about inspiration. I’m using AI all the time in everything that I’m doing to find inspiration. Because you know what, someone else has done it before, they’ve published it on the internet, and AI has grabbed that. So what I think AI will do, and how it will evolve with these what we call AI agents, is, you’ll say, I need some inspiration about a new kitchen. What are the options? Well, take a picture of your current kitchen, maybe take a picture of another kitchen and see how that might evolve. And I think AI’s AI is going to actually surface inspiration. But importantly, it then comes down to, okay, what are the individual things that I need to go and buy from B and Q to make this a reality? It’ll been put a pick list together, and eventually it’ll buy them on your behalf, but today, it could give you a list of everything that you need, what the prices are, maybe how things go together,
Tony Weaver
and what if you’ve used the AI and it’s got it wrong? Where does the blame lie? Does the blame lie with the company who’ve, perhaps, you know, given you the AI, or does it play with you for not using it properly?
Andrew Grill
Well, like anything, when you ask a computer, you have to double check that. I always say that with AI, you have to evoke your own critical thinking. So if it doesn’t look quite right, that’s where we move into what I call augmented intelligence, humans plus machines. That’s when you’re in the store and you ask a colleague, and they go, let me check that. Ah, well, we’ve got deeper information. We can actually check that’s the right information. So you never implicitly trust everything a machine tells you. That’s why augmenting it and having humans in the loop will be super powerful, and you’ll get the right advice.
Tony Weaver
I kind of, well, I mean, I understand this, and I use, I use AI. A myself, but I kind of worry that if we just rely so heavily on machines, we just don’t use our own instincts properly. Well, I think
Andrew Grill
you’re right, and studies have shown that AI may be making us less intelligent, but what I encourage everyone to do, including your listeners, is never let go of critical thinking, is what the machine’s telling me. Does it look right? Can I get a second opinion? Can I go and talk to a human? One thing that I think will be very important going forward with physical stores like the B and Q’s, is when you go in there, you’ll actually be able to talk to a human. So you’ll be able to talk to other people and have an experience. So I think people won’t just trust that. They’ll actually want to get second opinions from humans and the whole community. Concept of going into a store, being around other people that have had similar experiences, that’s when you can sense check what these machines are telling you.
Tony Weaver
Are we going to become too reliant on on AI, you know, we just can say, Oh, well, I don’t need to think about it. I mean, you talked about instinct, but, you know, I don’t need to think about it. I’ll just ask the computer, and the computer will tell me this, and I’ll believe it, and I’ll go off and, you know, do what it says, because it saves me time. It might not necessarily save me money. Mind you.
Andrew Grill
Well, I think with any evolving technology, you’ve got to actually work out how it works for you. And if you implicitly trust a machine, I mean, I don’t trust everything. All my friends tell me, because they have different opinions. So I always go and as I say, want that second opinion. I think we’ll have a bit of a pendulum that people will say, Oh, this was amazing. Ah, but that doesn’t look quite right. So when it comes to school leavers and people at university, I’m telling everyone that you need to make sure that you deploy critical thinking. So you’re right. It has the risk of just believing that. But I don’t think anyone believes everything they’ve ever read. They always want that second opinion. And I think humans are like that. They want to make sure they’re getting the right advice. That’s why, as I say, augmented intelligence, machines plus humans equals the right answer.
Tony Weaver
Where can we go to find out more information? We’ve got
Andrew Grill
a great microsite that looks at what the future of retail and the store of the future might look like. It’s an easy website. It’s Kingfisher store of the future.com.
Tony Weaver
Andrew Grill, thank you very much indeed for your time today.