You need to fix a leaky faucet. You’re not very handy, and if you’re being honest with yourself, you’re out of your depth. But it seems silly to call a plumber for such a simple home repair.
No worries. Just ask Mylow, the new digital assistant powered by artificial intelligence (AI) at the home-improvement chain Lowe’s. The bot will help with detailed steps for investigating and fixing the leak, instructional videos and links to the products you’ll need. Mylow will even suggest other questions you might ask about how to prevent leaks.
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Following the instructions, you discover the problem is a worn O-ring that will need to be replaced. Since you want to fix the faucet right away, you decide to drive down to the store to purchase the item, plus a few tools that you’ll need for the job. But you can’t find the specific O-ring that you need. At this store, though, Lowe’s is experimenting with a technology it calls Dwell, which uses computer vision and real-time heat maps of customer traffic patterns to alert sales associates to areas of the store where assistance may be needed.
It’s all part of a series of ambitious AI projects by the home-improvement giant, some of which is still in beta testing, that Lowe’s Senior Vice President of Data, Artificial Intelligence and Innovation Chandu Nair shared with a packed audience at NVIDIA GTC 2025, the chipmaker’s conference for developers, analysts, AI experts and others taking place March 17-20 in San Jose, Calif.
Nair said all the company’s AI projects are based on three pillars: how consumers shop, how sales associates sell and how Lowe’s employees at all levels work.
“We sell everything from home appliances to tools and lumber,” he said. “It’s a very complex store.” One goal of its AI projects was to simplify processes for both consumers and employees, using technology to fill information gaps for both.
Lowes Is Involved in Many AI Projects
Lowe’s introduced Mylow earlier this month, describing it as “the first AI-powered home improvement virtual advisor.”
“It’s not just a list of instructions,” Nair told the NVIDIA GTC audience, noting that the tool incorporates product discovery into the advisory process, making it easy for customers to find exactly what they need to get a project done. The tool is available to the public now but is still being tested, Nair said.
Less far along is the computer vision project that uses heat maps to send associates where they’re needed. Right now, Dwell is being tested in only about 50 locations, but Nair said the company has been encouraged by the results.
The company has been something of a pioneer in using AI to drive value and has been working closely with NVIDIA for years. Its proprietary self-checkout scanners use AI to reduce inventory loss, for example, and it has established an emerging technology division, its Innovation Labs, to investigate emerging technologies, especially AI.
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Why Lowe’s Created Digital Twins of All of Its Stores
Two years ago, Lowe’s leveraged NVIDIA’s Omniverse technology to create its first two digital twins — fully virtual versions of physical stores, updated in real time with information from sensors and point-of-sale devices such as cash registers — of stores in North Carolina and Washington.
Since then, Nair said, the company has created twins for all of its stores. The technology makes it easier to experiment with layouts and processes. In a video, Lowe’s CIO Seemanti Godbole said digital twins allow “retail associates and planners to collaborate in real time to understand sales performance and analyze anomalies.”
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The most important part of building a digital twin is ensuring that you have accurate, real-time data at each location. That’s not easy. Ensuring good data quality is often the biggest challenge for companies striving to work with digital twins or other AI technology, as evidenced by the questions that audience members asked of Nair. But getting it right for Lowe’s has meant that “everything you can do in a physical store, you can do digitally,” he said.
Nair said that technology is only part of the equation when reinventing retail spaces with AI, and not the most important part: “It’s really 70% change management, 30% technology.”
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