Enhancing The Shopping Experience With Google Cloud

The Home Depot, Google Cloud, and Walmart are extending their multiyear cloud partnership to further their digital transformation toward a seamless shopping experience. Home Depot has built its website around the cloud and is taking advantage of the expertise of Google’s infrastructure, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and data analytics to improve the shopping experience of customers.

The Home Depot’s use of Google Cloud’s flexible and scalable technology infrastructure enabled Home Depot to handle unprecedented levels of online customer demand in 2020 with 86% growth in digital sales. The company builds and deploys new capabilities, based on this scalable and stable platform, to meet the changing needs of its customers. Recent launches of online reservations for equipment rentals, such as those from Home Depot, are examples of this.

“We have concentrated on building an innovative foundation for the Home Depot’s systems and applications to give our customers the flexibility to shop whenever and however they wish”, says Matt Carey, CIO. Having built a scalable and flexible platform on Google Cloud since 2015, we can quickly introduce more customized experiences for our customers.”

The Home Depot also uses Google Cloud’s artificial intelligence/machine learning tools and BigQuery database, so that data scientists can provide real-time insights more quickly to business units across the organization. It also powers the voice search feature in the app, allowing customers to easily search for products using natural language.

The company also uses its assortment planning and inventory management capabilities to enable the fastest, most efficient, and most reliable supply chain in home improvement. Pro and DIY customers can now check availability and reserve items in advance through homedepot.com or its mobile app, which saves them time and trips to the stores.

A new Interactive Voice Recognition (IVR) system powered by Google’s DialogFlow provides a more efficient self-service experience when customers seek assistance after making a purchase at The Home Depot.

“The Home Depot’s long-standing focus on technology and early adoption of cloud enabled it to quickly adjust to meet the needs of customers and associates in the midst of the flu pandemic,” said Thomas Kurian, CEO, Google Cloud. “The Home Depot has extended our partnership with us to make home improvement more convenient and faster.”