Kmart owner optimistic for what AI will mean for it
Friday, 31 October 2025
Kmart owner Wesfarmers says the fast development of artificial intelligence (AI) will bring with it opportunities in terms of scale and efficiency ‒ but it will likely come at the cost of other organisations and industries.
Talking to shareholders at Wesfarmers’ annual general meeting in Perth, chairperson Michael Chaney said the board and the group was constantly monitoring AI, looking at how it might affect the company’s workforce of 120,000, and how it could deploy the technology across its businesses.
Australian-owned Wesfarmers, listed on the Australian Securities Exchange, owns retail chains Kmart, Bunnings, Target, Officeworks and a string of health and beauty retailers such as Priceline Pharmacy and Clear Skincare.
Asked by a shareholder during the meeting how AI might impact its workforce, Chaney said that was “currently unknown” given how fast-moving the development of the technology was.
However, he said AI was not likely to lead to job losses.
“No one knows where AI is headed and what it’ll lead to. We're very active in our consideration of AI. Today at the board, we had a 40-minute session from our lawyers about directors’ duties in relation to data and artificial intelligence. But no one, including the huge companies that are building data centres and promoting AI, know where it will lead,” Chaney said.
He was, however, optimistic about what AI may mean for the retail group, including a possible increase in jobs.
“If you ask me what employment will look like a year from now in Wesfarmers, it's likely to be higher rather than lower, because we have growing businesses, but it's something we have to monitor. We've got a duty to make sure that our company is protected from developments, including AI, and so we'll continue to do that reactively.”
Bunnings was one of its retailers using AI, through a device that uses AI to give a much richer product information experience, he said.
There would be more AI “use cases” across its businesses.
“Anil Sabharwal was on our board for a few years, and he was a senior executive at Google, and when ChatGPT first came out he said; ‘I'll tell you what worries the tech industry, it's the unknowns ahead of us, rather than the things you can forecast’. You can sit there and say, AI can eliminate white collar jobs, or AI can make things more efficient.
“When the iPhone was released, everyone looked at it and said was the lovely device we would be able to send text and put in our pocket and make phone calls and so on. No one at the time imagined the near destruction of the camera industry or the taxi industry or the problems associated with social media or the thing called things, of which there are hundreds of 1000s. They're the unpredictable things.
“His point was, there'll be things that AI leads to that we can't imagine, and some of them may be really bad, or some of them may be good, like increasing project productivity, maybe even increasing employment in different ways, but it's a big unknown. I can assure you that management is very focused on it and we will monitor it as evolves, and the board will do the same.”
Wesfarmers ‒ one of Australia’s largest employers ‒ operates in New Zealand through its Kmart and Bunnings businesses.
In the year to June 30, Wesfarmers grew its revenue by 3.4% to A$45.7 billion. It made an after-tax profit of A$2.9b, up 14.4%.
Managing director Rob Scott said Bunnings and Kmart, the company’s largest divisions, were driving sales and earnings growth for Wesfarmers.
Kmart sales across New Zealand and Australia increased by 2.9% to A$11.4b in the year, compared with A$11.1b in the same period a year earlier.
Scott said delivering low prices for customers remained a key focus for Kmart.
Bunnings sales increased 3.3% to A$19.5b, compared with A$18.9b a year earlier.
The company does not release sales data for each country.