Walgreen’s Deploying AI-Powered Voice Assistant Across the Chain

Walgreens is going live with a voice-powered artificial intelligence solution to assist associates across the chain better serve consumers.

The massive pharmacy chain is implementing Theatro’s at all of its 9,560 stores, with the first 1,000 locations deployed in 2019. The all-inclusive service will allow Walgreens’ associates to communicate with each other quickly and easily, helping to bring to life an improved healthcare and retail experience for customers and patients.

Walgreens store team members can use their voice to interact with Theatro’s artificial intelligence  powered Intelligent Assistant to get the information they need to perform their role and deliver differentiated customer experiences. The solution connects every associate to the enterprise network and to the leadership team through the use of a small voice-controlled Internet of Things (IoT) device that allows the associate to remain “heads-up and hands-free” when assisting customers.

“As we transform our stores into modern neighborhood health destinations, it’s critical that we enable our store teams to enhance the experience for customers and patients,” said Richard Ashworth, president of operations, Walgreens. “Technology solutions like Theatro allow us to communicate the changes we’re making directly and regularly with our team members, keeping them up-to-date and able to continue to offer great customer service.”

With a library of more than 80 voice-enabled mobile apps, as well as a robust API to support third-party apps, Theatro’s platform allows associates to quickly and easily access the resources required to help a customer or complete a task. Store managers can have more meaningful insights into critical customer service metrics such as speed of service to identify opportunities for store performance improvements.  

 “One of the largest challenges retail teams face is the disparate and ad-hoc communication methods traditionally used to reach large numbers of store team members,” said Chris Todd, CEO, Theatro. “Through our voice Intelligent Assistant and broad suite of workflow and collaboration apps, Walgreens is empowered to improve store execution and labor productivity by leveraging the power of AI native to our platform.”