From Zero to Nine Countries in One Year: homie AI and HORNBACH at K5 2026

A packed Scale-Up Stage, 10 a.m. – and everyone wide awake.

The K5 Future Retail Conference 2026 in Berlin is the meeting point for everyone who doesn’t just talk about e-commerce, but builds it. We had the privilege of opening the Scale-Up Stage: Hendrik Lallensack from homie AI, together with Christina Dausch and Lennart Szadorf from HORNBACH. No trend talk, no slides full of buzzwords – but an honest look behind the scenes of a rollout that went from an initial pilot to nationwide AI-powered advisory in nine countries within twelve months.

Why AI in DIY retail? Three bottlenecks, one gap.

The starting point is familiar to every major retailer: staff shortages are affecting the shop floor, highly qualified advice is becoming harder to provide, and at the same time, the product range keeps growing. HORNBACH also operates a marketplace, where numerous new products are added to the assortment every week and month – and each of them needs to be explained properly.

On top of that, customer expectations have changed: advice is no longer expected only during opening hours, but around the clock. Anyone planning their next project on the terrace on a Sunday morning wants their question answered immediately – not on Monday in the store.

Photo: Vincenzo Alex

The solution: an advisor that is consistent everywhere.

HORNBACH follows an interconnected retail strategy – advice that works across channels. This is exactly where the jointly developed “Macher Assistant” comes in: in the online shop, in the app, via QR code at the shelf and on customer PCs in the store. The same experience everywhere, with the same quality of answers.

What makes this particularly interesting: the most valuable questions are often the simplest ones. Where can I find this product? Is it in stock? Is it suitable for my project? These are exactly the questions that tie up the most capacity in everyday retail. When they are answered through self-service, specialist advisors gain time for what truly requires expert advice: the full bathroom renovation instead of a question about the right shelf.

What is actually behind it? Not a wiki.

One of the first questions from the audience went straight into the technology: which data sources are connected? The answer clearly shows the difference. An AI advisor of this kind is not a wiki that simply plays out a few predefined text modules. Behind it is the entire product range, including prices and stock levels, store-specific information for physical locations and the complete service world of a retailer. In short: everything the best employee in the store would know, too.

The real success factor: people, not the machine.

Anyone who thinks an AI rollout is purely a tech project underestimates the most important part. A rollout is not the same as widespread adoption. What made the difference at HORNBACH was involving specialist advisors from the very beginning, gathering feedback and taking concerns seriously.

During the pilot project, Christina and Lennart spent a lot of time on the shop floor for exactly this reason – in the stores, speaking directly with specialist advisors, many of whom have worked in retail for decades. Convincing these experienced colleagues that the homie AI really delivers value was the actual challenge – and the foundation for everything that followed. The message to the workforce was always the same: AI does not replace anyone. It takes over routine questions so there is more time for complex advisory situations.

Photo: Vincenzo Alex

From pilot to Europe-wide rollout: the numbers.

HORNBACH started with a lean MVP in 15 stores to gather initial insights. Today, the Macher Assistant is live in nine countries: Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Romania and Sweden.

And the impact across all homie customers is measurable: +30% conversion rate in sessions with active AI-powered advisory, –25% support tickets during peak times through answered availability and location questions, and demonstrably higher basket values, proven through A/B testing and Google Analytics.

Conversations become knowledge.

The next step is already becoming visible. Hundreds of thousands of conversations within just a few months create a data foundation that goes far beyond individual advisory situations. Where does the checkout process get stuck? Are customers asking for something that is currently unavailable? Which assortment trends are emerging – such as the start of the fireplace season toward autumn? Patterns like these can be identified from chat histories and translated into real business decisions.

Conclusion: courage, persistence – and quality that convinces.

K5 2026 confirmed one thing: the industry has moved from experimentation to application. The talk with HORNBACH showed what this looks like in practice – not as a vision, but as a rollout that reached nine countries in one year. The fact that the company continued to grow across Europe in the first quarter of 2026 shows the environment in which projects like this are now taking place. In the end, quality is what prevails.

Thank you to Christina Dausch and Lennart Szadorf for sharing the stage with us – and to everyone who engaged with the topic and asked questions after the talk. The future of advisory and sales is now.

Watch the homie AI aftermovie from K5 here!