Why JD Sports Has Kicked On With A New Era Of AI Shopping

JD Sports is to launch its first major AI initiative in the U.S. Photographer: Betty Laura Zapata/Bloomberg

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JD Sports Fashion is betting that the next place Americans buy sneakers will not be a website or an app, but a conversation with an artificial intelligence assistant.

The U.K.-listed retail giant said at the retail industry’s huge set piece show in New York last week that it would allow U.S. customers to search for and purchase sports footwear, apparel and accessories directly through AI platforms including Microsoft Copilot, Google’s Gemini, and ChatGPT, completing a transaction in a single click without leaving those platforms.

The move will start with JD Fine Line “in the coming weeks” and places JD, whose U.S. brands include DTLR, Shoe Palace, and Hibbett, among the first large retailers to treat generative AI tools as a fully-fledged sales channel rather than a marketing add-on.

For Regis Schultz, JD’s affable group chief executive, the logic is straightforward and a natural extension of current shopping behavior.

“We want to reach customers wherever shopping decisions are happening and make it easy for them to complete a purchase,” he said, arguing that AI search is fast becoming a primary entry point to commerce anyway.

North America is the natural testing ground. The U.S. now accounts for about 40% of JD’s global sales and a lighter regulatory framework makes what would not be possible in Europe viable in North America.

Schultz describes American consumers as notably resilient, even as European shoppers have become more sensitive to economic pressures, and roughly 50% to 60% of JD customers already use AI tools to search for products before arriving at the retailer, often via chatbots, he said.

Enabling those same tools to close the sale removes friction from the process and could lift conversion rates, though Schultz is careful to stress that the impact will be closely monitored.

The initiative is underpinned by JD Sports’ decision to become the first retailer to deploy technology developed jointly by Commercetools and Stripe, which connects large language models directly to JD’s product information, pricing and inventory systems, while Stripe handles secure checkout and payments.

Starting with Microsoft Copilot and later extending to other models, U.S. shoppers will be able to treat AI platforms as a one-stop shop, moving from discovery to purchase in a single conversational flow.

JD Sports Builds On Digital

For JD, the project builds on an 18-month effort to modernize its digital infrastructure. The group recently re-platformed its U.S. e-commerce operations using Commercetools and Schultz stresses that he wants the retailer to focus on what it’s good at, while working with technology partners to create its AI capabilities, including exploring parallel solutions with Shopify for other fascias.

“If you wait too long, others will get ahead,” Schultz said. “For us this is a natural extension of our search capabilities, and it provides a way that people like to shop, which is conversational.”

Industry data suggest JD’s timing may be well judged. Research by Adobe Express found that 60% of 5,000 U.S. consumers surveyed used AI as part of their shopping journeys. Separate analysis from the Pew Research Center indicates that AI-led search traffic is reshaping how consumers browse online, often leading to longer visits and more pages viewed than traditional search. JD’s approach is to integrate itself directly into that ecosystem.

JD Sports Makes NRF Announcement

JD’s leadership showcased the system at the National Retail Federation’s Retail’s Big Show in New York earlier this month, with Schultz up front and center in promoting what he believes is a new era.

The push into agentic commerce also sits within JD’s broader ‘Beyond Physical Retail’ strategy, which emphasizes investment in infrastructure and digital capabilities to support long-term growth.

Having achieved scale in both Europe and the U.S. — and tripled sales over the past six years — the group is now looking to markets such as the Middle East, Africa and South America, likely through franchise partnerships that employ local expertise.

JD believes that letting customers complete purchases without ever leaving an AI platform will improve the experience and, ultimately, drive sales. Not just an efficiency push, Schutlz believes that users genuinely prefer the conversational tone of chat bots to searching for JD Sports merchandise via conventional internet and social channels.