Michaels Launches Gemini-Powered Ask Mike Assistant

Michaels says Ask Mike generated nearly 75,000 conversations in its first weeks and that more than 60% of interactions focused on product discovery. Those figures come from the retailer's launch announcement.

In a July 27 report first published by Modern Retail and carried by Digiday, Michaels also said shoppers who used Ask Mike converted to an online purchase at more than twice the rate of shoppers using traditional search. The retailer reported that 27% of interactions led to a product-link click or an add-to-cart action.

Those numbers are useful early funnel signals, but they are not an independent experiment. The public reporting does not provide the baseline conversion rate, cohort definitions, traffic allocation, attribution window or controls for differences in shopper intent. People who choose a guided assistant may begin with different purchase intent from people using a search box.

Google Cloud and Michaels say the system moved from concept to production in six weeks. The rollout demonstrates how a retailer can place a catalog-grounded conversational layer across existing digital channels without replacing standard search.

For data and product teams, the measurement lesson is as important as the interface. Conversation volume, recommendation clicks, cart additions and completed purchases measure different stages of the funnel. A durable evaluation should track each stage, compare matched or randomized user groups, monitor recommendation relevance and failure cases, and report whether gains persist beyond an initial launch period.

Michaels plans to add AI-generated product overviews and contextual prompts on product pages. Those additions could create new discovery paths, but their value will depend on whether they improve completed customer tasks and purchases without introducing irrelevant or inaccurate product guidance.