Kingfisher’s new AI assistance has been designed to support customers with their DIY projects and offer customised product recommendations. Credit: Kingfisher group.

UK-based retailing company Kingfisher has rolled out its first artificial intelligence (AI)-powered assistant in the home improvement segment.

The AI assistance has been designed to support customers with their do-it-yourself (DIY) projects.

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It will initially be introduced only across Kingfisher’s hardware store chain Castorama in France.

Customers can use the virtual assistance to answer all their DIY home improvement queries in a stepwise advice format.

Harnessing the capability of generative AI, the new assistance will also offer customised product recommendations.

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Another option for customers to get their queries answered is by conversing with the AI assistant through text chat or by uploading a photo. The assistant is capable of analysing uploaded photos to carry out visual searches and answer visual queries.

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Kingfisher’s AI assistant is also capable of responding in multiple languages.

Should this multi-lingual capability prove to be successful, the retailing company said it will launch the AI assistant to other brands under the Kingfisher Group.

Kingfisher group data director Tom Betts said: “Our new virtual assistant is designed to simplify the world of home improvement, making DIY projects easy and accessible for everyone.

“Whether you are a DIY novice looking for advice getting started with a project or an experienced DIYer in need of a technical answer quickly, our assistant will be on hand to support you 24/7.

“We are hugely excited by the potential of this technology and look forward to seeing the response from customers.”

Kingfisher’s data team has developed a proprietary AI orchestration framework, referred to as ‘Athena’, to ensure the new AI assistant’s success and support future AI developments.

Athena will help manage interactions and prompts with a variety of large language models and other AI tools developed by the company in-house.

It also features various controls to maintain security and safeguard sensitive or inappropriate content.