ATLANTA — Franziska Bell became Home Depot's chief technology officer in April 2026. Angie Brown became the company's chief information officer in May 2025, and Jordan Broggi was named executive vice president of customer experience and the online channel in June 2024.

Home Depot reported net sales growth of 4.8% in the fiscal first quarter compared to year-ago levels. The company acknowledged that homeowners were delaying larger projects due to concerns about higher gas prices, layoffs, and other economic uncertainties.

The company tested a customer service AI system built with Google Cloud in 50 stores. During the pilot, voice agents understood what a customer was calling about in 10 seconds. Home Depot made Microsoft Copilot available to its office workers and uses Anthropic's Claude coding system to speed up software development. The company also uses machine learning algorithms to guide workflows for store associates.

Brown stated that the company's AI investments must be linked to supporting merchandising within physical stores, cultivating an interconnected retail ecosystem involving digital channels, or growing business with contractors, builders, and other professionals. "Am I going to limit the number of use cases that can leverage AI to solve a problem?" Brown asked. "I don't want to. If AI can help solve those problems that we have already identified from a business perspective, I'm not going to hold them back."

Magic Apron, an AI assistant, debuted in March 2025. The tool can answer shopper questions, summarize product reviews, and has generative AI capabilities trained on Home Depot's product data. Broggi stated that when Magic Apron launched, "the consumers loved it and the pros hated it." The pro version of Magic Apron was removed because the system asked professionals questions that were too simplistic. Home Depot is fine-tuning the large language models for Magic Apron to improve the user experience for professional shoppers.

Home Depot is rolling out Magic Apron functionality to employee smartphones and plans to make the tool multilingual in a future upgrade. "Generative AI is becoming more and more a part of everybody's life," Brown said.

The company uses an internal AI system called "order intelligence" to assess risk scores for deliveries based on millions of past data points. This system evaluates risks such as properties requiring a gate code or having a winding path, and it determines whether a 22-foot or 36-foot delivery truck is better suited for a location. The system proactively contacts customers about potential delivery problems and provides more accurate delivery times.

Broggi stated that customers do not know or care much that generative AI is operating in the background. "They just want their stuff delivered on time, complete, undamaged, and with clear communication," he said. Separately, Home Depot is developing a generative engine optimization strategy and allows shoppers to purchase its goods on OpenAI's ChatGPT. The company also supports Google's Universal Commerce Protocol. Broggi stated that the retail strategy for AI shopping platforms has not been clearly defined thus far.