NOLA Brings AI to the Shop Floor—Empowering Retail Staff & Customers in Real Time

Meet NOLA: The Digital Assistant Blending Smart Service with Noel Leeming’s Signature Customer Experience

From guiding shoppers through the purchase journey to seamlessly handing off to staff, NOLA blends conversational AI with personality and consistency—creating a more engaging, human-feeling retail experience, even without a person present.

Reimagining In-Store Retail with an AI-Powered Assistant

NOLA is The Warehouse Group’s AI retail assistant, created to elevate the in-store shopping experience through conversational intelligence and real-time product support.

Designed as a scalable, voice-enabled assistant, NOLA empowers frontline staff and customers alike with instant access to inventory data, product insights, and operational support—bridging digital capabilities with physical retail environments.

Built on a foundation of natural language processing and enterprise-grade AI orchestration, NOLA responds to spoken queries with precision, enabling store teams to locate products, check stock levels, retrieve training content, or answer customer questions—without breaking focus or disrupting workflow.

NOLA represents a critical evolution in retail operations, transforming static environments into adaptive, intelligent spaces that boost staff productivity, reduce friction for customers, and future-proof physical retail through human-AI collaboration.

Key Outcomes

  • Conversational AI Interface
    NOLA supports voice-first interaction, allowing staff to speak naturally when requesting product information, operational guidance, or stock availability.

  • Real-Time Retail Data Access
    Integrated into The Warehouse Group’s systems, NOLA provides immediate access to inventory, pricing, and location data across multiple stores.

  • Staff Empowerment
    Reduces onboarding time and improves customer service by enabling associates to stay engaged with customers while NOLA supplies back-end information.

  • Scalable AI Infrastructure
    NOLA is designed to scale across store networks, with the ability to update capabilities centrally and expand functionality as needed.

  • Retail Innovation Leadership
    Positioned as a flagship initiative in TWG’s retail transformation strategy, NOLA has redefined the role of AI in big-box retail environments.

Role: Chief Creative Officer (Consultant)
Company: The Warehouse Group
Project: NOLA – AI-Powered Retail Assistant

As Chief Creative Officer, William led the strategic concept, design, and AI interaction vision for NOLA, reimagining how AI could assist frontline retail teams in high-volume, high-traffic environments.

He crafted a user-centered interaction model focused on clarity, speed, and trust—ensuring NOLA integrated seamlessly into existing retail workflows. Collaborating with retail operations, IT, and AI platform teams, William helped define NOLA’s persona, voice behaviors, and task prioritization logic, ensuring the assistant responded intuitively to real-world retail demands.

Through this work, NOLA became a benchmark in the deployment of intelligent assistants for physical retail—turning every store into a digitally-augmented space that enhances staff performance and customer satisfaction in equal measure.

2x

increase in
conversion rates

300%

increase in
customer engagement

9%

reduction in cart
abandonment rates