{"id":117785,"date":"2026-09-04T18:35:15","date_gmt":"2026-09-04T18:35:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/117785\/"},"modified":"2026-09-04T18:35:15","modified_gmt":"2026-09-04T18:35:15","slug":"uks-john-lewis-looks-to-harness-ai-agent-shopping-in-difficult-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/117785\/","title":{"rendered":"UK’s John Lewis looks to harness AI agent shopping in “difficult economy”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n By
\n
Reuters\n <\/p>\n

\n Published
\n <\/p>\n

September 4, 2026<\/p>\n

\n John Lewis<\/a>, Britain’s largest employee-owned retailer, is stepping up investment in content creation as customers increasingly find \u2060products through AI agents, seeking to keep them engaged in what it called a “difficult economy.”<\/p>\n

\"AA John Lewis logo adorns the facade of the flagship store in London, Britain, August 19, 2026 – REUTERS\/Corey Rudy\/File Photo<\/p>\n

The department store group said searches from AI agents had risen to 2.5% from just 0.3% a year \u2060ago, and the trend \u200cwas accelerating.
“It’s exponential, and \u2060it’s all age groups,” said Peter Ruis, managing director of John Lewis department stores.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The group unveiled a new studio in \u200bits flagship Oxford \u200bStreet store on Thursday where influencers can record content daily, generating the online buzz that AI taps into. It is also producing its own video content, starting with a regular \u200cmini-series starring \u200bcelebrities. The retailer gave no financial details of its investments.<\/p>\n

Ruis said British \u200cshoppers were being “very careful” about \u2060discretionary spend as they worry about inflation and higher interest \u200crates. Asked about summer trading, he said while the economy was difficult, there had been bright spots such as booming sales of air conditioning units and garden furniture during successive heatwaves.\u00a0<\/p>\n

British economic data over the summer showed surprising signs \u200bof strength, but economists have warned over the country’s vulnerability to high inflation stemming from the Iran war. “It isn’t an economy where you’re going to \u200bsplurge when you \u200cknow \u200byou’ve got that inflation swirling around you,” he told reporters.<\/p>\n

The \u200cretailer \u200cwill report half-year results on September 10.\u00a0
In August, the Financial Times said John Lewis had warned employees that the department store chain was facing “really tough” trading \u2060conditions.<\/p>\n

Ruis said a lot of “key customers” in their 40s and 50s were worried about interest rates rising and whether their \u200cchildren at school and university would \u200bbe able to get jobs in future. Ruis is due to step down on September 6 and be replaced by Will Kernan, currently a non-executive \u200cboard member.\u00a0\u00a0\n <\/p>\n

\n \u00a9 Thomson Reuters 2026 All rights reserved.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Reuters Published September 4, 2026 John Lewis, Britain’s largest employee-owned retailer, is stepping up investment in content…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117786,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[4188,1109,8412,20622,21886,44554,5,6],"class_list":["post-117785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-uk","tag-beauty","tag-fashion","tag-john-lewis","tag-luxury","tag-network","tag-professionals","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/117214217937858067","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}