Wesfarmers to deploy agentic AI in retail operations

Australian retail giant Wesfarmers has signed a multi-year deal with Google Cloud to deploy agentic artificial intelligence (AI) across its portfolio of brands, including Kmart, Officeworks, Priceline and OnePass.

The agreement will see the Perth-based conglomerate use Google’s Gemini Enterprise platform to build AI agents – software capable of reasoning and executing multi-step tasks – to handle customer enquiries and automate internal workflows.

According to the company, the deal aims to address the growing operational complexity of managing a large multi-brand retail group while meeting consumer demand for faster, more personalised service.

“As we expand the use of AI across areas such as forecasting, design and customer engagement, it’s important that we do so responsibly, at scale and with the right partners,” said Rob Scott, managing director of Wesfarmers. “Google Cloud’s capabilities will support the development of agentic solutions that enhance customer experiences and enable our teams to focus on higher-value work.”

Wesfarmers is piloting a Search with OnePass feature powered by AI agents to allow customers to shop conversationally across multiple divisions, such as finding products from both Kmart and Bunnings, in a single interaction.

The company is also deploying AI assistants to resolve customer support queries more efficiently by understanding the full history and context of a conversation. Internally, Gemini Enterprise will be available to retail teams in operations, engineering, marketing and finance to help analyse data and automate routine administrative tasks.

“AI is fundamentally changing the retail sector, enabling companies to develop deeper connections with their customers with every interaction,” said Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud. “By integrating Google’s agentic AI across Wesfarmers’ iconic brands, we aren't just digitising the storefront – we are helping them reimagine every customer touchpoint and automate their internal processes.”

To support the rollout, Google Cloud will deliver a custom AI upskilling programme for Wesfarmers staff, training them to identify areas where AI agents can be deployed in their daily work and create better experiences for customers.

Besides Wesfarmers, Google Cloud is supporting efforts by other retailers to harness the capabilities of cloud and AI. In January 2026, Woolworths became the first in Asia-Pacific (APAC) to use the Gemini Enterprise for Customer Experience platform to turn its Olive chatbot into a proactive shopping partner.

Other major Australian organisations are also using Google Cloud’s capabilities to improve their operations. For example, Australia Post has been using BigQuery, a cloud-based data analytics warehouse, to gain visibility into every stage of the mail delivery process and slash the time to perform analytics by a factor of 10.

In the financial sector, ANZ is using Google Cloud’s data analytics capabilities to process banking data, reducing analysis time for aggregated, de-identified credit card data from days to seconds. The bank recently deployed Salesforce’s Agentforce platform to help business bankers recover hours of lost productivity by automating tasks and streamlining workflows.

According to a recent report by Lenovo, enterprises across APAC are doubling down on AI initiatives, with 96% of them planning to increase their AI investments by an average of 15% this year. While interest in AI agents is high, with 60% of APAC organisations exploring the technology or planning limited deployments, only 10% consider themselves ready to scale their agentic AI implementations.