Michaels said shoppers using its Ask Mike, an AI-powered shopping assistant, converted at more than double the speed of consumers using the retailer’s traditional search function. The tool has handled nearly 75,000 conversations since launching in May.
The retailer formally announced Ask Mike on July 21, describing it as its first customer-facing AI shopping assistant. Michaels said 27% of interactions led to a product click or an item being added to a cart.
Ask Mike is obtainable through the corporate’s desktop and mobile web sites, in addition to its iOS and Android applications. It was built using Google Cloud’s Gemini Enterprise for Customer Experience, which also supports AI shopping functions at retailers including Ulta Beauty, Macy’s, and The Home Depot.
Customers can describe a project or shopping goal using natural language as a substitute of entering individual product terms. Ask Mike then asks about aspects akin to project type, materials, colors, and budget before recommending products.
Michaels said more than 60% of Ask Mike interactions have focused on online product discovery. Customers have used the assistant for requests starting from planning parties to choosing materials for craft and residential projects.
Baymard Institute’s ecommerce usability research identifies several types of search intent beyond exact product queries, including searches based on product features, compatibility, and use cases. Ask Mike’s prompts similarly gather details about what the shopper is trying to finish before returning recommendations.
From discovery to buy
Heather Bennett, president and chief customer officer at Michaels, said shoppers using Ask Mike converted at more than double the speed of consumers using traditional search.
Michaels didn’t disclose the underlying conversion rates, the sizes of the comparison groups, or average order values. It also didn’t provide separate figures for product clicks, cart additions, and accomplished purchases.
“Unlike traditional search, Ask Mike acts as a creative assistant that helps shoppers move seamlessly from inspiration to product discovery and cart motion, driving much higher overall engagement,” Bennett said.
Traditional search often requires customers to divide a wider project into individual keywords and review the outcomes themselves, Bennett said. Ask Mike as a substitute uses the shopper’s broader objective to recommend products connected to the identical task.
Michaels has also observed differences within the products chosen through each style of search. Customers using Ask Mike often add essential materials and related ending items for projects akin to parties, framing work, and crafts, in accordance with Bennett.
Customers using the standard search bar more commonly search for a selected product they’ve already identified. Michaels didn’t provide data showing whether the reported bundling behaviour resulted in larger baskets or higher order values.
Adobe Digital Insights has individually reported higher engagement and conversion amongst retail visitors referred by external AI services. Its evaluation of more than one trillion visits to US retail web sites found that AI-referred visitors converted at a rate 54% higher than non-AI traffic in May 2026.
Adobe also found that AI-referred visitors spent 53% more time on retail web sites, viewed 23% more pages per visit, and were 36% less more likely to leave immediately. Those findings concern traffic referred by external AI platforms quite than assistants embedded inside retailers’ web sites, so that they aren’t directly comparable with Michaels’ results.
Building out Ask Mike
Michaels moved Ask Mike from concept to production in six weeks. Google Cloud attributed the event timeline to the retailer’s existing cloud infrastructure, updated technology stack, and product catalogue, which had been organised to be used by the AI assistant.
Kapil Dabi, Americas lead for retail and consumer packaged goods solutions at Google Cloud, said the technical foundation was just one a part of the deployment. Retailers also need to grasp the style of assistance customers require during specific shopping journeys, he said.
A customer planning a party, for instance, may have recommendations across several product categories quite than a response focused on one item. Dabi said this requires knowledge of how customers approach a project and which products they need at different stages.
Michaels plans so as to add product overviews and integrated prompts to product pages. The retailer didn’t provide a timeline for introducing the features.
(Photo by حامد طه)
See also: Google leads AI discovery as ChatGPT dominates LLM referrals
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