What challenges did Farmers face before AI implementation?

Improve customer experience and operational efficiency across multiple retail brands within the Wesfarmers Group. Address language barriers for non-English speaking customers. Support retail teams with timely information and AI-enabled tools to improve productivity and customer service.

Source

MicrosoftExpandedProductionEvidence: Medium55/100

Wesfarmers Retail Group Leverages Microsoft AI to Enhance Customer Service and Team Productivity

Use case typeConversational supportUpdated Jun 13, 2026

Wesfarmers and its retail brands including Bunnings, Kmart, Officeworks, Priceline, and Catch are exploring and deploying AI to drive efficiencies, support team members, and enable improved personalized customer experiences. Key AI implementations include 'Ask Lionel', an AI-powered information service that provides in-store teams fast access to data, insights, and announcements to assist customer queries. They are trialing AI-driven live chat for non-English speaking customers, personalized marketing offers, and AI-powered team support functions like safety and payroll queries and tailored training. The group has conducted large-scale trials of GitHub Copilot with over 700 developers using it and deployed Microsoft 365 Copilot to over 1,000 users for productivity gains. Conversational Commerce capabilities integrating Azure OpenAI are being piloted within digital channels, with plans for broader customer rollout in 2025. Wesfarmers is also developing governance principles aligned with Microsoft Responsible AI Standards and investing in AI training through Microsoft Enterprise Skilling and AI Academy programs.

Organization: Farmers
Industry: Retail
Location: Australia
Published: December 2024

Planned next steps

Successful pilots of AI-driven retail and customer service capabilities with plans for broader deployment in 2025.

Why do we believe this deployment?Customer identity, provider attribution, maturity, and source checks

Customer: Farmers
Provider: Microsoft
Maturity: Production
Linked source: Microsoft News

The group has conducted large-scale trials of GitHub Copilot with over 700 developers using it and deployed Microsoft 365 Copilot to over 1,000 users for productivity gains

Customer identity supportedSource describes one deploymentMaturity supported

Primary read

Use case focus

Showing 3 of 4

1AI-enhanced customer service
2AI-powered team productivity
3Conversational AI

Implemented 'Ask Lionel', an AI-powered in-store information service.
Trialed AI live chat for multilingual customer support and personalized marketing recommendation systems.
Deployed GitHub Copilot to enhance developer productivity with AI-assisted programming.
Rolled out Microsoft 365 Copilot across business functions for increased team productivity.
Piloted Azure OpenAI-enabled Conversational Commerce for enhanced digital customer engagement.
Established AI governance and training programs aligned to responsible AI use.