Best Buy selects Google Cloud as its AI innovation and strategic partner for several of its key customer care initiatives

MINNEAPOLIS, April 9, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Cloud Next '24, LAS VEGAS -- Best Buy, Google Cloud, and Accenture today announced a new collaboration that will involve deploying generative AI (gen AI) to greatly improve the experience for Best Buy customers looking for support services.

By leveraging Google Cloud's generative AI technology, Best Buy is creating new and more convenient ways for customers to get the solutions they need. This work will provide customers a self-service option, allowing them to find solutions more independently and will also allow Best Buy customer service agents to better serve customers by providing them with new tools that make interactions more efficient and personalized.

It is anticipated that Best Buy's U.S. customers will be able to connect with a gen AI-powered virtual assistant for self-service support starting in late summer 2024. The assistant can help with things like troubleshooting product issues, rescheduling or combining order deliveries, or managing software, Geek Squad subscriptions and My Best Buy Memberships. Customers will be able to access all of these services while shopping on BestBuy.com, using the Best Buy mobile app, or calling the customer service line directly.

In the coming months, Best Buy will also launch new gen-AI enabled capabilities for customer care agents to use while interacting with a customer across various internal platforms. These tools are designed to help reduce the mental workload for agents, allowing them to better focus on personally connecting with the Best Buy customer. During interactions between an agent and customer, these tools will also assess, recap the conversation, detect sentiment of the interaction, and provide agents with real-time, relevant and human-focused recommendations. The data from these calls will be used to ensure a positive resolution is reached for the issue at hand and to reduce the likelihood that similar issues will occur for Best Buy customers in the future.

In addition to implementing tools to assist customer care agents, Best Buy will work with Google Cloud and Accenture to develop an AI-driven assistant specifically for its front-line employees serving customers nationwide. This assistant will aim to provide a broad array of solutions to support employees in stores with things like finding internal Best Buy company resources or pulling up specific product guides to help better serve a Best Buy customer.

"These new gen AI-powered capabilities further enhance our commitment to deliver better, more personalized experiences to our customers by unlocking the power of people," said Brian Tilzer, Chief Digital Analytics and Technology Officer at Best Buy. "We are excited to leverage and tailor these innovations with great partners like Google and Accenture so we can continue to serve our customers in unique and differentiated ways and make our employees' jobs easier."

"Retailers are increasingly tapping into gen AI to create more seamless customer experiences and empower employees with new tools to make their work more impactful," said Thomas Kurian, CEO, Google Cloud. "Our collaboration with Best Buy will help customers better interact with Best Buy's brand and services, and employees will also gain more sophisticated tools to assist shoppers."

Julie Sweet, chair and CEO, Accenture, said, "This collaboration further advances Accenture's longstanding commitment to helping Best Buy achieve superior shopper and employee experiences, optimize costs and create growth. With a strong digital core and innovative generative AI solutions, Best Buy can tap the power of cloud, data and AI to do more efficiently what it does so well-take good care of its customers-and reach new levels of performance across the business."

Best Buy will tap into a range of Google Cloud products including their Gemini models and Vertex AI, to create and launch these AI capabilities, as well as Contact Center AI to develop state-of-the-art conversational agents. The selection of Google Cloud's generative AI technologies builds on how Best Buy uses AI across a number of customer care fronts.

Best Buy and Google have a long-standing relationship with existing collaborations across other Google products and services, including Advertising, Hardware, Google Chrome, and more. Powering some of Best Buy's upcoming gen AI deployments will be a coordinated effort across Accenture, Google Cloud Consulting, and Best Buy's internal teams to build, test and scale new capabilities for Best Buy.

About Best Buy Co., Inc.
Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) is the world's largest specialty consumer electronics retailer. Our purpose is to enrich lives through technology, which we do by providing our customers a unique mix of advice, products and services in our stores, online, and in homes. Our expert associates advise customers on our curated assortment of the latest, name-brand technology, while our highly trained services teams help with designs, consultations, delivery, installation, tech support and repair. We are a leader in environmental, social and governance issues, including through the Best Buy Foundation's nationwide Best Buy Teen Tech Center® network and the significant role we play in the circular economy through repair, trade-in and recycling programs. We generated more than $43 billion of revenue in fiscal 2024, operate more than 1,000 retail stores in North America, and have more than 85,000 employees. For more information, visit corporate.bestbuy.com and investors.bestbuy.com.

About Google Cloud
Google Cloud is the new way to the cloud, providing AI, infrastructure, developer, data, security, and collaboration tools built for today and tomorrow. Google Cloud offers a powerful, fully integrated and optimized AI stack with its own planet-scale infrastructure, custom-built chips, generative AI models and development platform, as well as AI-powered applications, to help organizations transform. Customers in more than 200 countries and territories turn to Google Cloud as their trusted technology partner.

About Accenture
Accenture is a leading global professional services company that helps the world's leading businesses, governments and other organizations build their digital core, optimize their operations, accelerate revenue growth and enhance citizen services-creating tangible value at speed and scale. We are a talent- and innovation-led company with approximately 742,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Technology is at the core of change today, and we are one of the world's leaders in helping drive that change, with strong ecosystem relationships. We combine our strength in technology and leadership in cloud, data and AI with unmatched industry experience, functional expertise and global delivery capability. We are uniquely able to deliver tangible outcomes because of our broad range of services, solutions and assets across Strategy & Consulting, Technology, Operations, Industry X and Song. These capabilities, together with our culture of shared success and commitment to creating 360° value, enable us to help our clients reinvent and build trusted, lasting relationships. We measure our success by the 360° value we create for our clients, each other, our shareholders, partners and communities. Visit us at www.accenture.com.

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SOURCE Google Cloud