THE AI INTERVIEW
they need. Mohsen’ s experience suggests otherwise, particularly in a project-driven business such as home improvement.
“ Our customers often don’ t know what product they want,” he explains.“ They know what outcome they want, but they don’ t know how to get there. Unless it’ s something obvious, like needing a drill.” That insight led Kingfisher to move away from conventional keyword search towards conversational alternatives, resulting in a recently-announced partnership with Google.
In December 2023 – ahead of the curve – the company launched its first customer-facing AI agent, a piece of software capable of holding a natural conversation to help shoppers find solutions rather than simply matching search terms to products.
Mohsen notes:“ We were the first in the industry to put an AI agent like that live on our front end, and we did it in French first, which was even harder.”
The tool, known as Hello B & Q, is now available on B & Q’ s website, offering shoppers a similar conversational experience to interacting with Google’ s Gemini or OpenAI’ s ChatGPT, but tailored to B & Q’ s product range.
Learning from the shop floor Despite his seniority, Mohsen breaks the mold by regularly working on the shop floor in Kingfisher stores, an experience he describes as invaluable, if occasionally uncomfortable.
“ It’ s very nerve-wracking,” he admits.“ Customers come to you with a question and you feel you don’ t know the answer.
22 July 2026