Kmart has launched Joy, a Google-powered AI shopping assistant with virtual try-on and see-it-in-my-space features across its online range. It follows Bunnings, and signals that AI shopping in Australia is moving from pilot to default at the big retailers.
Kmart has put an AI shopping assistant called Joy into its online store, built on Google Cloud's Gemini. Customers can describe what they want in plain language, by style, colour, occasion or budget, upload a photo for tailored recommendations, try products on virtually and place home items in their own space before they buy. It is live on the website and rolling into the app in June.
Kmart is not first. Bunnings has already gone down this road, and both sit under Wesfarmers, which has signed multi-year deals with Google and Microsoft to embed AI across its businesses. So this is not a one-off experiment. It is a parent company wiring AI into how its retailers sell.
Why it matters
When the biggest mass retailers in the country make conversational AI the front door to their range, they reset what shoppers expect everywhere else. The customer who asks Kmart for a budget outfit in plain language and gets a curated answer will try the same thing on your site. If they get a search box that needs exact keywords, you feel small by comparison.
The virtual try-on and see-it-in-my-space pieces matter for a specific reason. They attack the moment of doubt before checkout, the one where a shopper is not sure how something looks and bounces. Removing that hesitation is a conversion lever, not a gimmick.
Wesfarmers retailers, Kmart and Bunnings, now running AI shopping tools under multi-year deals with Google and Microsoft
What to do about it
The big retailers are setting the new baseline for what online shopping feels like. Match the expectation or explain to your customers why you cannot.