Big companies are using agentic AI tools to help customers in new ways this week. The Home Depot and Google Cloud joined together to create smart AI helpers called agents that can answer questions, find products, and help people fix their homes. These AI agents are not just simple robots that answer one question at a time. They can do many tasks for customers, like managing orders and finding items in stores.

At the NRF 2026 retail event on January 11th in the United States, Google Cloud showed off a new tool called Gemini Enterprise for Customer Experience. This tool helps stores and businesses give customers better help through chatbots, phone calls, and text messages. Another company, Caterpillar, announced their Cat AI Assistant that can understand pictures, videos, text, and speech.

During the holiday shopping season, customers loved using AI helpers. In fact, AI drove about 20% of retail sales and helped with $262 billion in sales. People used AI customer service two times more during the holidays than before. By the end of December, AI conversations went up by 66% compared to November.

However, not everyone is happy about AI taking over customer service. Many people worry that companies are replacing real humans with robots. About half of customers say their biggest worry about AI is losing the ability to talk to a real person. Yet, some customers are learning to like AI help when it works well.

Big stores like Kroger in the United States are also using Google's new AI system to help customers shop and find recipes. The week shows that agentic AI is becoming a big part of how companies help their customers buy things and get support.