Michaels reported that a Google Gemini-powered AI assistant doubled the conversion rate of shoppers who used it compared to those who used traditional keyword search, according to Modern Retail. The craft retailer deployed the AI tool to handle conversational queries that standard search boxes couldn't parse — questions like "what do I need to make a fall wreath" instead of single product names.
The assistant interprets natural language questions, pulls relevant products from Michaels' catalog, and returns both project guidance and the specific items needed. A shopper asking about wreath-making receives a list of foam bases, floral wire, ribbon, and seasonal picks, with add-to-cart buttons alongside each. The AI draws from Michaels' product data and surfaces items the shopper wouldn't have known to search for individually. Traditional keyword search requires the customer to already know the component parts; the AI assistant fills that knowledge gap and populates the cart in one interaction.
The mechanism works because craft projects are systems, not single items. A shopper planning a birthday banner needs cardstock, string, glue dots, and letter stencils. Keyword search for "banner" returns finished banners, not the materials to make one. The Gemini assistant understands intent, maps it to a bill of materials, and converts the question into a shopping list. Each item it surfaces is another line in the cart. Conversion doubles because the friction drops: the shopper doesn't abandon after one failed search, and the basket size grows when the AI does the parts-list work.
Michaels also benefits from reduced zero-result searches. When a customer types a vague or project-based query into a standard search bar, the system often returns nothing or irrelevant SKUs. The shopper leaves. The AI assistant interprets the same query as a project brief, matches it to categories and products, and keeps the session alive. The difference between 2x conversion and baseline isn't the novelty of AI — it's that the tool answers the question the customer actually asked.
A small physical-product brand can run the same play without a Google partnership. The core move is recognizing that customers ask project questions, not SKU questions, and then surfacing the parts list. If you sell camping gear, your search bar gets "what do I need for a weekend camping trip." If you sell baking supplies, it's "how do I decorate a two-tier cake." Standard search fails; a simple AI tool succeeds. Use a low-cost conversational AI like OpenAI's API or Anthropic's Claude, feed it your product catalog as structured data, and prompt it to return a shopping list when a customer describes a project or use case. The assistant doesn't need to be on your homepage — put it in a "Build Your Kit" page, in post-purchase email, or in a quiz flow. A founder can wire this in a weekend using a no-code tool like Voiceflow or Typeform plus an API call. The cost is a few cents per interaction, and the return is the same as Michaels: fewer dead-end searches, more items per cart, higher conversion on traffic you already paid for.
The pattern extends to any category where the purchase is a system, not a single item. Skincare routines, home-office setups, pet starter kits, tool collections for a specific repair. If your product is part of a solution, your search should solve for the whole solution. Michaels proved the lift at scale. You can prove it in a week with 100 sessions and a $15 API budget.
The takeaway
When customers ask project questions, AI assistants that return parts lists convert at double the rate of keyword search.
The branded-identity layer Chiefs of Staff and heritage CMOs route through — your name imprinted on real authorized stock, your pick of 200+ brands and 70,000 products, shipped from one accountable house. Nine editorial desks publish the intelligence those operators read before they sign.
200+authorized brands
70,000products · virtual proof on each
9 deskspublishing daily
1997one house, since
70,000 SKUs · virtual proof in 60 seconds · no platform fee · blind-shipped · ASI #217876
Your next customer won't visit your website. Their AI will.
AI assistants have quietly taken over the first step of buying — they answer from catalogs they can read and shortlist whoever can actually ship. Two questions now decide whether you exist to that buyer: can a machine read your catalog, and can you fulfill the order. Most brands fail one or both and never find out why the orders went elsewhere. The winners of this shift aren't the loudest. They're the most readable. Build for the machine that's about to do the shopping.
Built by the craft floor — apparel, media, packaging, and secure print.
This trade runs on hands, not desks. Imprint manufacturing & Komori Press · Canon high-speed secure-media operations is a craft floor — genuine Six Sigma discipline applied to ink, thread, foil, and registration, where a hundredth of an inch is the difference between a brand that reads serious and one that reads cheap. POPS4 is built by exactly those operators: independent, boots-on-the-ground engineers who carry their own book, read a client in microseconds, and put their name on every run. Beyond our own Virginia Beach floor, we work with a vetted network of craft manufacturers across the US — each meeting the highest excellence in QC standards in the industry, each a specialist in its own discipline — so apparel, hard-goods imprinting, media manufacturing, packaging, and secure printing all go to the bench built for them, coordinated from one accountable hub. Short-run from twenty-five units, volume to five hundred thousand. Two hundred authorized national brands, seventy thousand SKUs with virtual proofing on every one. Art archived for instant reorders. Net-thirty corporate terms, NDA-standard white-label — your name on the work, or none at all.
Strategy, positioning, identity, creative, and messaging — wired into an AI system that publishes and distributes on its own. Nine editorial desks generate the authority, the production house ships the physical proof, and the attribution layer tells you which post sold which SKU. What you get is an operating layer — content, catalog, and order path under one roof — that keeps working whether or not you are in the room. Built for principals who would rather own the machine than rent the agency.
Named-account programs — one desk, quiet delivery, NDA-standard.
One point of contact who already knows the file, so nothing restarts from zero between engagements. The work ships blind, under NDA, with your name on it or none at all. Built for single-family offices, heritage-house CMOs, sports-ownership groups, and the agencies that white-label our production. The relationship is the product; the merch is the proof of it.
SFO · Chief of Staff desk. Principal household, properties, aircraft, yacht, calendar, philanthropy — one file.
Shop seventy thousand products. Virtual proof on every one. 24/7.
Drop your logo on any product and see the virtual proof before asking. Quote routes direct to the desk. MCP catalog for AI agents. Celeste for the fast conversation. Full self-service checkout in development.