Lowe’s has implemented Milo to act as both a tool and a design platform. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
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Many of the country’s biggest retailers spent much of the three days they attended the NRF Retail’s Big Show earlier this month being warned that they could be consigned to history by the new AI generation.
And questions were even raised about whether AI platforms would start to cut retailers out of the loop completely. But clearly no-one has sent the memo to homewares giant Lowe’s.
I sat down with Lowe’s Senior Vice President of Omnichannel and Ecommerce, Neelima Sharma, during the event and the home improvement retailer has no intention of letting the next digital revolution pass it by.
Not only is Lowe’s carving out its own path by infusing artificial intelligence into its operational core and customer experience through a platform it calls Milo, but it seems well ahead of many other retailers in how far it has come.
“We have been very structural and methodical, we don’t see AI as a layer we add on top of the business, we see it as the connective fabric of how we design experiences that feel personal, predictive and frictionless,” Sharma said.
Milo is, short for ‘My Lowe’s Intelligence Operator’ and has been in place for nearly 12 months as the internal AI ecosystem underpinning the retailer’s next phase of digital expansion. Milo integrates data across Lowe’s vast retail network — from e-commerce logs and inventory to customer service transcripts and product reviews — to create a platform for product discovery, personalization, and, increasingly, creative design.
“We can it from inspiration to installation,” she said. “Milo is not a chatbot or a single tool, it’s our intelligence layer.”
Lowe’s began testing AI-driven applications in inventory management and predictive maintenance nearly five years ago. But the unveiling of Milo marked a broader statement of intent to make Lowe’s both a retailer and a digital design partner for homeowners planning renovations and remodels.
Milo Set For The Simple And Complex
What’s impressive is that Lowe’s operates in a complex retail arena. Product breadth is huge, some customer tasks may be highly technical, others mundane but requiring accuracy, and others still are more about look and feel.
“One of the biggest changes is with consumers, who have become more accustomed to and better at asking questions of Milo,” she said. “So while people may start by product searching, they move on to asking about how, for example, they create decking for their back yard as they trust the technology more.”
That evolution has resulted in a recently launched AI-powered kitchen design service that allows customers to visualize a remodel from their own photos, using natural-language prompts and instant 3D rendering.
“If you can imagine your dream kitchen, you can now describe it to us, and within seconds Milo will translate that vision into designs with products, finishes, and layouts grounded in Lowe’s real catalog,” Sharma said. “You can also use visual prompts, so you don’t need to describe something, you can use images.”
The kitchen design tool, accessible online and in some stores, functions as a digital co-designer, blending generative AI, augmented reality and Lowe’s product database. Customers can upload an image or scan their existing kitchen, then interact with Milo to explore different styles and toggle material choices in real time.
Lowe’s is looking to make shopping more seamless for customers. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
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“People want to see what’s possible without being overwhelmed. AI helps us get them there faster,” she said, adding that the ultimate goal is to then take that outline design and schedule a visit to carry out full measurements and then the installation.
“When customers can move from idea to purchase in a single experience, everyone wins,” Sharma added, envisaging a future where AI will effectively take over the project management for design, delivery and installation, scheduling the whole process and managing the logistics.
Associates in stores can also use AI-driven insights to anticipate demand and restock items more precisely and the same intelligence layer powers online recommendations, marketing personalization and predictive service alerts for professional contractors using Lowe’s Pro services.
“This isn’t AI for the sake of AI,” Sharma emphasized. “It’s about precision. It’s about freeing our associates from repetitive work so they can spend time doing what they do best: helping customers make confident decisions.”
Lowe’s Develops To Support Milo
It’s a challenging market currently, but Lowe’s has expanded its digital operations hub in Charlotte and opened a dedicated AI lab in Bangalore, supporting both software engineering and ethics review teams.
And Sharma points to several early metrics suggesting that Milo is already making an impact. Pilot users of the kitchen design service were twice as likely to finalize a project estimate compared with traditional digital consultations, and design-to-purchase time dropped by nearly 40%.
In the longer term, Milo is likely to extend beyond kitchens, from bathrooms and outdoor projects to lighting and home energy systems. Lowe’s is also testing AI assistants for professional contractors, providing instant layout calculations, materials optimization and even sustainability scoring.
“Home is personal,” Sharma said. “Technology should respect that. Our goal is not for Milo to replace human creativity, but to amplify it.”