Retail is entering an era where AI isn’t just answering questions. Instead, AI is becoming a branded companion that guides, inspires, and even entertains. We already covered this topic of Agentic Shopping in our article about Walmart’s recently introduced Sparky, an agentic shopping assistant designed to anticipate customer needs and streamline decision-making. Now Williams-Sonoma is stepping into the spotlight with plans for its own AI “culinary companion”, a digital concierge that blends product discovery with cooking and entertaining advice. Together, these moves signal a noticeable shift: leading retailers are no longer experimenting with chatbots, but reimagining customer experience around intelligent agents that amplify their core brand strengths. 

Brand-Infused Companions with Data as the Secret Ingredient 

For years, retailers experimented with generic chatbots that often created more friction than value. The new generation of AI assistants is different. Walmart’s Sparky is designed to act with intent, navigating product catalogs and services in a task-oriented, “agentic” way. Williams-Sonoma’s culinary companion appears poised to take a more domain-specific approach, blending its heritage in kitchenware and entertaining with AI’s ability to surface contextually relevant guidance. Instead of a one-size-fits-all bot, each brand is using AI to extend its unique strengths into a conversational form. 

Williams-Sonoma’s Chief Technology and Digital Officer, Sameer Hassan, put it bluntly in the company’s Q2 2025 earnings call, as reported by Retail Dive, saying that AI is the engine, but data is the fuel. The culinary companion is expected to draw from the company’s deep product knowledge, CRM insights, and customer behavior data to provide recommendations that feel authentic to the brand. In practice, that means the system won’t just tell you which blender to buy but can go further to help plan a holiday dinner, pairing recipes, cookware, and tabletop décor into a cohesive experience. Such an experience offers personalization rooted in expertise, not just predictive algorithms. 

Omnichannel by Design 

Crucially, Williams-Sonoma won’t limit this assistant to the website. The company envisions the companion extending across its entire ecosystem: online shopping, in-store guidance, and even in-home programs. This omnichannel deployment ensures that wherever a customer engages, they encounter a consistent, intelligent experience that feels like an extension of the Williams-Sonoma brand. For customers, it means fewer fragmented experiences. For the brand, it means higher loyalty, stronger basket sizes, and richer data feedback loops. 

Behind the scenes, Williams-Sonoma is leaning on Salesforce’s AI technology to power its customer-facing initiatives. Earlier this summer, its Pottery Barn Kids division deployed Salesforce AI for service interactions. Now that same backbone is being used to scale the culinary companion across the portfolio. This highlights another key CX lesson: the power of vendor partnerships. Retailers don’t need to build AI platforms from scratch. They can co-create experiences by layering their own domain expertise over a robust technology foundation. 

Walmart vs. Williams-Sonoma and the Rise of Agentic Shopping 

Comparing Walmart’s Sparky with Williams-Sonoma’s culinary companion reveals two complementary visions of retail AI. Walmart is focused on agentic commerce: giving customers a digital assistant that can complete tasks, handle transactions, and simplify shopping journeys at scale. Williams-Sonoma appears to be pursuing domain depth: creating an expert assistant that reflects the brand’s long-standing authority in cooking and entertaining. Both approaches signal a move away from generic bots and toward branded companions that embody a retailer’s DNA. 

The rise of agentic shopping marks a turning point in how consumers interact with brands. Instead of scrolling through endless catalogs or clicking through static menus, customers are beginning to rely on intelligent assistants that act on their behalf. These AI companions are anticipating needs, suggesting solutions, and even completing tasks. This shift has significant implications for retail, but its ripple effects will likely extend to travel, healthcare, financial services, and other sectors where customers crave guidance and simplicity. 

The Challenge of Consumer Adoption 

For CX leaders, the message is clear: AI should not be bolted on as a novelty, but woven into the fabric of the brand. The most effective agents reflect what a company already does best, amplifying its strengths rather than mimicking competitors. Success also hinges on data. Rich, connected, first-party data is what enables these assistants to move beyond surface-level personalization and deliver interactions that feel genuinely tailored. 

Omnichannel integration will become another competitive edge. Customers expect consistency whether they’re browsing online, visiting a store, or engaging through a home service. 

Of course, it remains to be seen whether consumers will embrace a branded tool like Williams-Sonoma’s culinary companion. After all, most people already consult general-purpose GenAI platforms such as ChatGPT or Perplexity when looking for recipe ideas or cooking advice. The differentiator will be whether Williams-Sonoma can go beyond generic answers and deliver value tied directly to its ecosystem: such as pairing a recipe suggestion with the right cookware, offering step-by-step guidance tailored to the products a customer already owns, or even coordinating meal planning with loyalty rewards and personalized promotions. In that context, some customers may decide the tradeoff of sharing more personal data about their kitchens, shopping habits, or even family traditions, is worth it for an experience that feels both expert and uniquely theirs. 

That balance between personalization and privacy will be the real test, and it’s a topic worth revisiting as these brand-specific companions begin to take hold. 

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