The man who built Apple’s stores doesn’t buy Silicon Valley’s bet on AI shopping

While Silicon Valley is spending billions to marque AI agents store for us, the antheral who pioneered Apple’s retail stores thinks the manufacture is overestimating however overmuch of buying radical volition manus implicit to machines — and believes carnal stores volition proceed to thrive.

Ron Johnson, 66, has heard predictions astir the demise of carnal retail before. He joined Apple successful 2000 to physique its retail concern arsenic online buying was opening to instrumentality off, and went connected to assistance make a store web that became cardinal to however Apple sells its products and connects with customers.

“AI is simply a caller exertion that volition amended the online buying experience,” Johnson said successful an interview. “But I don’t cognize that it’s going to alteration which mode we shop.”

Johnson’s presumption comes arsenic immoderate of the world’s biggest tech companies are trying to propulsion AI deeper into shopping, betting that agents tin automate much of however we find and bargain items — a conception commonly called agentic commerce. Google is making that propulsion with its Universal Commerce Protocol, a modular designed to assistance AI agents instrumentality consumers from merchandise find to checkout. OpenAI, meanwhile, is turning ChatGPT into a buying destination wherever users tin research, compare, and, successful immoderate cases, adjacent bargain products without leaving the chatbot.

Asked whether helium could ideate idiosyncratic letting an cause take and bargain a $1,000 oregon $2,000 laptop without ever visiting a website oregon store, Johnson was unequivocal: “Honestly, nobody’s going to bash that.”

Buying a laptop, helium argued, is excessively idiosyncratic a acquisition to simply delegate to an AI agent. Buyers privation to consciousness its weight, spot the show and determine which size works for them. AI whitethorn constrictive the choices, Johnson told TechCrunch. He added that galore consumers would inactive privation to acquisition the merchandise themselves earlier spending that benignant of money.

“AI volition ne'er beryllium capable to person you physically acquisition a product,” Johnson said. Instead, helium expects agents to amended pass consumers earlier they locomotion into a store. “They’ll conscionable go much informed shoppers erstwhile they travel to the store.”

Johnson’s condemnation stems from a determination Apple made much than 2 decades ago. Apple’s carnal stores, helium said, were designed not lone arsenic places to bargain Macs, but besides arsenic places wherever radical could effort products, larn however to usage them, and instrumentality for assistance erstwhile thing went wrong.

Some of those bets are revisited successful Shop Different: How Retail Revealed Apple’s Genius, Johnson’s caller publication astir gathering Apple’s retail operations alongside Steve Jobs. Competitors, helium said, borrowed Apple’s glass-heavy design, unfastened layouts, and adjacent versions of the Genius Bar, but often missed the people.

“The concealed condiment for Apple has ever been its people, the radical successful the store, and however they dainty the customer,” Johnson said.

Apple Store employees are not paid connected commission, Johnson said, dissimilar the income civilization communal crossed overmuch of retail. The idea, helium said, was to region the unit to merchantability and alternatively person employees fig retired what a lawsuit really needed.

After leaving Apple, Johnson took over J.C. Penney successful 2011 with an ambitious program to reinvent the struggling department-store chain. He was ousted little than 2 years aboriginal aft income plunged.

Johnson present says helium tried to alteration excessively much, excessively quickly, without bringing employees and customers along. Apple’s stores had efficaciously been a startup that evolved alongside the company’s products. J.C. Penney, connected the different hand, was a turnaround that required a antithetic approach.

“I applied a startup mentality to what needed to beryllium a turnaround transformation,” helium recalled.

Johnson aboriginal returned to the startup world, founding Enjoy Technology, an e-commerce institution that brought exertion products and setup services straight to customers’ homes. The startup filed for bankruptcy successful 2022 and sold substantially each of its assets to Asurion.

For each his skepticism astir however AI volition reshape shopping, Johnson remains bullish connected the exertion itself. “I’m a existent believer successful AI. I’m an AI optimist,” helium said.

He believes Jobs would person embraced AI, too, but not arsenic a substitute for quality judgment. “There’s nary substitute for quality intuition,” Johnson said, recalling Jobs’ content successful bringing astute radical unneurotic to statement problems and find caller ways of looking astatine them.