IKEA (Ingka Group): a service chatbot and 8,500 retrained agents

Context

Ingka Group, the largest IKEA retailer, faced a familiar problem: call centres handling millions of routine enquiries — order status, returns, delivery windows — while more valuable customer conversations queued behind them. Instead of treating automation purely as a cost-cutting exercise, IKEA paired it with a large-scale reskilling programme.

What was deployed

IKEA introduced Billie, an AI assistant first launched in 2021, to handle routine inbound customer service enquiries. In parallel, it retrained call centre employees as remote interior design consultants — a paid advisory service where customers plan kitchens, wardrobes and living spaces with a human expert, remotely.

Reported results

As reported by PYMNTS, citing Reuters: Billie came to handle roughly 47% of all inbound enquiries — about 3.2 million conversations — while approximately 8,500 call centre employees were retrained as design consultants. The remote design service generated €1.3 billion in revenue by the end of fiscal year 2022, about 3.3% of Ingka Group's total sales, with a stated ambition to reach 10% by 2028. Billie's automation delivered operating savings of nearly €13 million, and in fiscal year 2025 the remote planning service helped over 73,000 customers (PYMNTS, May 2026).

What to learn

• The chatbot was the smaller number. €13 million in savings versus €1.3 billion in new service revenue.
• Automate the routine, upskill for the complex. A transferable pattern for any commerce service operation, at any scale.
• Plan the people side before the technology side. Directly relevant to obligations on human oversight under the EU AI Act, which reaches full enforcement on 2 August 2026.

Source: PYMNTS, May 2026 (citing Reuters).