The Home Depot turns fragmented customer service into seamless journeys with Google Cloud
Summary
This session presents The Home Depot's partnership with Google Cloud to build Magic Apron, a digital AI agent designed to replicate the company's iconic in-store "Orange Apron" customer service experience across digital channels. The session features speakers from both The Home Depot and Google Cloud discussing how Magic Apron was built on Gemini Enterprise as its foundational model layer.
The Home Depot describes the customer journey as moving through inspiration, research, shopping, buying, and finally doing — and positions Magic Apron as an agent that supports customers through every stage of that journey. The agent serves dual contexts: in-store customers use it primarily for wayfinding, product knowledge, and compatibility questions, while at-home users on the website benefit from the same capabilities in a browsing and purchasing context.
A key technical detail highlighted is the use of Gemini Enterprise as the "bedrock" of Magic Apron, praised for providing the speed and processing power required to support the agentic backend. The speakers note that this agentic infrastructure enables the blending of in-store and digital channels into a more unified experience.
The most concrete business outcome cited is a measurably higher conversion rate among customers who use Magic Apron compared to those who do not. The session frames the partnership with Google Cloud as central to keeping The Home Depot at the forefront of customer and associate experience innovation, with the stated goal of making each stage of the shopping journey easier: easier to find inspiration, easier to locate products, easier to order, and easier to get post-purchase support.
Key Takeaways
- •Magic Apron is built on Gemini Enterprise, which provides the speed and power needed to run a production-grade retail AI agent at scale.
- •Customers who use Magic Apron show higher conversion rates than those who do not, giving a direct business justification for the investment.
- •The same agent handles both in-store use cases (wayfinding, product knowledge, compatibility) and at-home digital use cases, enabling true omnichannel coverage.
- •An agentic backend architecture allows blending of physical and digital retail channels rather than treating them as separate experiences.
- •The design goal is to reduce friction at every stage of the customer journey — from inspiration through post-purchase support — not just at point of sale.
Transcript
There's a customer journey that often starts with inspiration, goes into research, and then into shopping and buying and then into doing. And Magic Apron is really a digital agent to help through that whole journey. And it is really there to provide that Orange Apron experience for help and customer service the same way that as you come into a store, you're used to that great customer service. So, we've had a partnership with Google for quite some time and the latest things that they're bringing...
