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Published 25 Nov 2024· via news.microsoft.com· News article

Coles delivers hyper-personalized retail experiences and boosts efficiency with AI and Copilot

Coles · Retail · Australia

Headline result

The source does not publish a single comparable figure. Reported results are listed below.

Summary

Coles Group, an Australian retail leader, has partnered with Microsoft on a strategic five-year digital transformation journey. The initiative seeks to modernize Coles' IT estate, increase operational efficiency, and enhance customer experience through Microsoft Fabric, Azure OpenAI, Azure ML, and Copilot agents.

A core component is an AI-as-a-Service platform enabling rapid, secure rollout of AI use cases—including 'Tell Coles', a generative AI tool for analyzing customer feedback and sharing insights with store managers. Coles also employs Microsoft Fabric at the center of its digital data platform to deliver real-time, personalized recommendations for customers on all channels.

Intelligent Edge Backbone (IEB) technology supports IoT-enabled supply chain advances and in-store machine learning, reducing stock loss and advancing sustainability goals. Additional tools, such as Power Apps and Copilot, boost productivity for staff and help modernize business processes.

The co-innovation has enabled Coles to handle massive data volumes, democratize analytics, and use Power BI for targeted reporting—helping management make smarter, faster decisions.

Coles measures success in improved customer sentiment, efficiency gains, reduced losses, and deeper customer engagement—all while advancing sustainability.

The problem

  1. 01Demand for hyper-personalized digital customer experiences in retail.
  2. 02Need to improve operational efficiency and productivity in stores and supply chain.
  3. 03Desire to extract actionable insights from large, varied customer and operational data.
  4. 04Pressure to achieve sustainability targets and reduce stock loss.

What they built

  1. 01Strategic partnership with Microsoft to co-innovate digital retail solutions.
  2. 02Implemented Azure OpenAI, Copilot, and Microsoft Fabric to enhance personalization and analytics capabilities.
  3. 03Deployed IoT and edge computing backbone (IEB) to power in-store automation and optimize logistics.
  4. 04Used Power Apps to simplify and digitize tools for store teams and business units.

Reported results

  1. 01Faster delivery of personalized digital recommendations for shoppers.
  2. 02Reduced stock loss and improved safety and productivity for frontline teams.
  3. 03More targeted, actionable customer feedback for ongoing service improvement.
  4. 04Deeper customer loyalty, engagement, and sustainability results.
  • Delivered personalized recommendations across channels
  • Reduced stock loss and improved sustainability
  • Enabled smarter, faster decisions
  • Deepened customer loyalty and engagement

Source

news.microsoft.com

News article · 25 Nov 2024

Read the original(opens in a new tab)

How this deployment compares

Computed from the library · data 10 Nov 2026

Coles has 3 deployment records in the library, from 2024 to 2025. It is one of 32 shopping recommendations deployments, 27 of them in Retail. Like 63% of records, its source gives no figure.

Coles in the library

3 deployment records from Coles, 2024–2025

  1. Mar 2024Coles transforms in-store experience and efficiency through AI-powered edge platformLivestock monitoring
  2. Nov 2024This record · Shopping recommendations
  3. Jan 2025Coles Group modernizes logistics and retail using Microsoft Azure AIIndustrial inspection

Followed upA newer Coles record from 2025 is in the library, so the AI program continued after this announcement.

How Coles uses AI: company page

Same pattern, whole library

One of 32 shopping recommendations deployments

  • Retail accounts for 27 of them (84%), more than any other industry.
  • 9 records of this pattern came before it; 17 have been published since.
  • Only 8 of the 32 put a number on the result (25%).
  • Distinctive claim: Better decisions & insight outcomes are reported by only 7 peers (22%).
  • Distinctive claim: Market & geographic expansion outcomes are reported by only 4 peers (13%).
Provider mix
  • Microsoft66%
  • GCP28%
  • AWS6%
Most-used technology
  • Azure OpenAI 12
  • Azure AI 6
  • Copilot 6
  • Azure 5
  • BigQuery 4
  • Microsoft Fabric 3

Outlined: used in this record.

Shares describe this library, not the whole market.

Shopping recommendations analysis

Results against peers

No figure here. What peers report

Like 63% of records in the library, the source gives no figure. Peers that do quantify similar claims report:

  • Revenue & growth23 figures, Retail · middle half 5%–64%23%median increase
  • Cost savings11 figures, Retail · middle half 29%–68%43%median reduction
  • Quality & accuracy50 figures, all industries · middle half 22%–96%40%median increase

Peer figures are as reported by their sources; percentage claims only.

How we checked this record

Evidence tier: supported

A credible source with a named customer, but not the organization's own account.

Named organization
Coles
Who published the source
A third party (press or analyst)
Deployment status
Production (confidence 95%)
Quantified result
The source reports no figure
Summary checked against source
4 / 5 agreement

Last re-checked 13 Jun 2026.

This record is evidence for

Insight · industryRetail dossierOne of 237 Retail deployments. See which patterns dominate there and what they report.Insight · patternShopping recommendations32 deployments share this pattern. See where it is used and how it is built.Trend · momentumEmerging pattern3 new deployments in the last six months, against 4 in the six before.

Same pattern, other organizations

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    PoC

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  3. 23 May 2026
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    CN2U.AI · Shopping recommendations · GCP

    CN2U.AI is a cross-border ecommerce platform for international shoppers buying products from China at local prices or below. The company implemented chat-based product discovery and personalized recommendations powered by Gemini 2.5 Flash on Vertex AI to support multilingual search and persona-aware recommendations across more than 2 million products. The solution uses explainable, LLM-generated personas and contextual signals to rewrite queries in real time and improve discovery quality across Asia, Europe, and North America.

    −20%
    time
  4. 13 May 2026
    Other

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    Scaled Production