Marvin Ellison, Lowe’s chairman and CEO, is positioning the home improvement retailer at the intersection of two workforce trends: aggressive investment in artificial intelligence and a major push to develop skilled trades careers. On September 1, the Lowe’s Foundation launched the Building Futures Skilled Trades Coalition, the nation’s largest cross-sector skilled trades coalition, aiming to train and develop 1 million skilled tradespeople by 2035.
The coalition brings together more than 75 founding members, including major corporations like NVIDIA, AT&T, Bank of America, Carrier, General Motors, DEWALT, and Duke Energy, alongside community colleges and workforce organizations. The initiative addresses a critical labor gap: the U.S. Department of Education estimates that as many as 2.1 million skilled-trades jobs could remain unfilled by 2030.
This coalition launch builds on Lowe’s Foundation’s earlier commitment announced in April 2026 to invest $250 million to help train and develop 250,000 skilled tradespeople by 2035. That program grew from the foundation’s existing network of 73 community college and nonprofit partners across 30 states. Ellison has made clear that skilled trades represent careers AI cannot easily replace, telling workers that human-facing jobs and hands-on trades are “critical to the future.”
At the same time, Ellison is doubling down on AI transformation within Lowe’s itself. The company has embedded generative AI tools across customer-facing and internal workflows, partnering with OpenAI to power Mylow, an AI shopping assistant that launched in March 2025. According to recent earnings disclosures, Mylow has fielded more than 25 million questions from customers and store associates, and online customers who use the assistant convert at three times the rate of those who do not.
The Mylow assistant addresses a fundamental retail challenge: most customers arrive with problems, not products. A shopper with a leaking faucet may not know the exact fitting needed; Mylow translates that unstructured question into a specific list of purchasable items. The tool also powers Mylow Companion, which helps store associates answer customer questions and speeds new employee onboarding by providing instant access to product knowledge.
Ellison has framed this dual strategy—AI for efficiency and trades for resilience—as complementary rather than contradictory. In February 2026, he told investors that Mylow is helping associates overcome the “most difficult part of transition to a home improvement world,” which is product knowledge. The assistant has driven “dramatic improvements” in customer service, including a two percentage-point lift in in-store satisfaction scores and helping to bridge language gaps in some geographic areas. Online, the company reported that conversion rates doubled for Mylow users in early 2026, with more recent data showing the three-fold lift persisting.
The coalition’s focus spans three areas: improving perceptions of careers in the skilled trades, expanding proven training and credentialing programs, and developing shared measures to track workforce outcomes from training through employment. Coalition members plan to use labor-market data and employer input to strengthen connections between training providers and industry. AT&T, Bank of America, Carrier, and Duke Energy executives emphasized in statements that growing demand for skilled workers requires partnerships across industries and education providers.
For Lowe’s, the strategy reflects a broader recognition that the home improvement sector depends on both digital innovation and human expertise. While AI can help customers find the right products and assist employees in serving them, the actual installation, repair, and construction work that generates customer loyalty and recurring business requires trained professionals. By investing in both AI capabilities and skilled trades development, Ellison is betting that Lowe’s can lead in a retail environment where technology augments rather than replaces human skill.
Sources
- Community College Daily — Details on the Building Futures Skilled Trades Coalition launch, founding members, and coalition focus areas.
- PYMNTS — Mylow conversion rate data (3x), number of questions fielded (25+ million), and CEO Ellison’s remarks on the earnings call.
- Business Insider — Mylow conversion rate doubling, launch date (March 2025), in-store satisfaction lift, and language barrier benefits.
- Distribution Strategy — Mylow conversion rate confirmation and Ellison’s strategic commentary on agentic AI.
- Fortune — $250 million investment announcement and Ellison’s statement on skilled trades being “critical to the future.”
- Lowe’s Foundation website — Coalition announcement and existing Gable Grants program details.
- Digital Commerce 360 — Generative AI tools embedded across customer-facing and internal workflows.
