The Home Depot is rolling out new artificial intelligence tools aimed at simplifying how contractors plan projects and build materials lists, as the retailer pushes deeper into professional spending amid a slow housing market.
“With the advent of AI tools, we’re introducing a number of project management and list builders for our pros,” Chief Executive Officer Ted Decker said on the company’s fourth-quarter earnings call. He pointed to what he described as “an AI takeoff scheme” designed to speed up early project planning.
Decker said the tool allows contractors to “build projects, just typing in the type of project they’re working on,” with “a pre-populated list of the project, in the app for the pros.”
“So, they don’t have to go through and put the, you know, the hundreds of items,” he said. “It pre-populates, and then they can edit that list, they can save that, repeat it for future jobs.”
Merchandising executive Billy Bastek said Home Depot is already seeing heavy use of its digital tools for contractors, particularly for larger and more complex purchases. He said the company’s online business-to-business sales are growing faster than its overall online sales, driven by new features aimed at professionals.
“Our online B2B sales outpaced our overall online sales growth,” Bastek said, citing the company’s projects tool. “We’re seeing tens of thousands of projects each week being started, and those result in higher conversion, and greater engagement around transactions for complex sales.”
Bastek also said Home Depot is seeing “strong early days from our AI Blueprint takeoffs,” along with continued growth in trade credit usage among professional customers.
Executives said the AI tools are part of a broader effort to reduce friction in contractors’ daily work, particularly around delivery coordination and communication. Bastek said the company has expanded how it communicates with customers during deliveries.
“We used to only be able to communicate to one person on the job,” he said. “Now we can communicate to many, you know, including the owner and those that are kind of on-the-job site when it comes to those deliveries.”
Home Depot has also rolled out new handheld devices for delivery drivers, which executives said enable real-time tracking and better visibility for customers. Decker said those devices support live tracking for large deliveries, such as job-site lumber drops and appliance deliveries.
“To be able to track live a bulky delivery, whether that’s a flatbed rolling down with lumber to a job site or an appliance showing up at the home, that’s been a really big win for our customers,” Decker said. “They are loving that feature that we’ve rolled out.”
The company is emphasizing professional customers as many homeowners continue to delay major renovation projects. Decker said contractors who use more of Home Depot’s tools and services are more valuable customers.
“Pros who are utilizing our pro ecosystem of capabilities are spending more with us,” he said.
Home Depot reported modest sales growth in fiscal 2025, while earnings declined from the prior year. Looking ahead, executives said the company plans to continue investing in technology and services for contractors in 2026.
“There is a continued healthy build-out in 2026 to be done,” one executive said later in the call, referring to additional digital tools and integrations, while noting that “a significant portion has been completed already.”
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