How Best Buy Uses AI To Transform Customer Experience

The electronics retailer’s methodical approach to artificial intelligence in customer experience offers lessons for companies rushing to deploy the latest tools

Best Buy Co. faced a daunting challenge that would sound familiar to many large corporations: multiple different software applications were needed to run its contact centers, creating a maze of complexity for customer service agents and frustrating experiences for shoppers seeking help. “When I came into this space, we had 93 applications that were needed to run our contact centers,” Daniels revealed. This fragmentation created what she describes as “incredibly sticky and muddy” experiences for both agents and customers.

Rather than simply layering AI on top of this fragmented system, the Minneapolis-based retailer took a step back. The company’s approach—starting with customer outcomes rather than flashy AI capabilities—has yielded rapid results and provides a roadmap for other businesses grappling with how to effectively deploy AI technology.

“AI is not the goal. It is one solution and often needs to be incorporated with many others to bring an actual experience to life,” said Ashley Daniels, Best Buy’s vice president of product management, in a recent interview with Lopez Research.

Beyond the Hype AI Hype in Customer Experience

Best Buy’s disciplined approach stands in stark contrast to the AI frenzy that has gripped corporate America since the debut of ChatGPT. While many companies have rushed to implement artificial intelligence tools, often with mixed results, Best Buy has focused on solving specific business problems.

Three Pillars of Its Customer Experience AI Implementation

Best Buy’s AI strategy focuses on three core areas, each designed to enhance different aspects of the customer journey:

1. Customer Self-Service Empowerment

The company launched a gen AI-powered virtual assistant that enables customers to independently handle complex tasks, such as troubleshooting product issues, rescheduling deliveries, and managing subscriptions. Best Buy didn’t just launch a simple chatbot—it’s an intelligent system that can understand context and provide meaningful solutions across web, mobile app, and phone channels.

2. Customer Service Agent Augmentation

Best Buy has also created AI solutions that provide advanced assistance to customer care agents. The system provides real-time conversation assessment, sentiment detection, and contextual recommendations, enabling agents to focus on building personal connections with customers. As the company notes, these tools “are designed to help reduce the mental workload for agents, allowing them to better focus on personally connecting with the Best Buy customer.”

3. Front Line Employee Support

Putting AI assistive tools in the hands of front line workers can fundamentally change the customer experience. Companies like Wendy’s are experiencing the benefits of this strategy today and Best Buy story highlights a similar trend. Beyond customer-facing applications, Best Buy is developing AI assistants for front-line employees. These tools provide easier access to company resources and product guides, enabling store associates to serve customers more efficiently and confidently.

Additionally, Best Buy commits to transparency, always informing customers when they’re interacting with AI rather than humans. However, the company strives to make those interactions feel natural and helpful.

The strategy appears to be working. The company deployed AI-powered conversation summarization in its contact centers in just six to eight weeks—a timeline that surprised even internal teams. But Daniels cautions that not every AI project moves that quickly. The retailer’s experience suggests that successful AI deployment requires managing expectations. While some capabilities can be implemented quickly, others take time to develop properly.

Best Buy created a vision for its AI-powered customer service a year before the technology was fully ready to support it. “The technology is catching up to our vision,” Daniels said. “When you give the technology a chance to catch up to your vision, it makes it less painful.”

The Role of Strategic Partnerships in Customer Experience

Best Buy’s AI initiative relies on partnerships with Google Cloud and consulting firm Accenture—a three-way arrangement that divides responsibilities strategically. Google provides the underlying AI technology and rapid innovation. The company’s partnership with Google Cloud wasn’t just about adopting new AI capabilities—it was about fundamental architectural consolidation. Despite serving similar conversational functions, Best Buy recognized that their chatbot and IVR (Interactive Voice Response) systems were built by separate teams using different solutions. This insight led to a unified approach where AI could power consistent experiences across all customer touchpoints.

Accenture brings implementation and regional experience from working with multiple companies. Meanwhile, Best Buy maintains control over customer experience decisions and business strategy.

Daniels emphasizes that partnership doesn’t mean abdication of responsibility: “Just because you have partners does not mean that you get to step back and take your hands off the wheel… we’re the only people that can make decisions about the experiences we want for our customers.”

Advice for Other Companies

The retailer’s experience highlights a crucial lesson that many AI enthusiasts overlook: the underlying business infrastructure matters as much as the artificial intelligence solutions.

Daniels compares the process to remodeling a house. If your foundation isn’t solid, your windows leak, your walls will have cracks, and you’re not going to achieve the outcomes that you want. For Best Buy, the foundation includes clean data, updated software interfaces that enable different systems to communicate, and a deep understanding of how the business operates.

“People think that when AI shows up to save the day, we no longer need domain experts,” Daniels said. “In my opinion, it’s the exact opposite.” She likens training AI systems to managing a new teenage employee who needs guidance from experienced mentors to be effective.

For businesses considering their own AI initiatives, Best Buy’s leaders offer two key recommendations. First, define clear outcomes before selecting technology. “Be thoughtful about what outcome it is that you want to drive,” Daniels said. Second, invest in foundational capabilities, including data quality, modernizing APIs, system integration, and employee expertise. Without these elements, even sophisticated AI tools are likely to disappoint.

While there is considerable hype surrounding the creation of fully autonomous workloads with agentic AI, today’s AI success stories treat the technology as a tool to enhance human capabilities rather than replace them entirely.

Best Buy has taken this approach, and other companies, such as Cisco, have also shared how AI will assist their employees in delivering faster, better customer experiences. Best Buy’s measured approach suggests that sustainable success with AI technology comes from being thoughtful.