{"id":79365,"date":"2026-05-11T21:05:22","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T21:05:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dralysstore.com\/blog\/?p=79365"},"modified":"2026-05-11T21:05:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T21:05:23","slug":"academy-sports-and-outdoors-omnichannel-includes-ai-platforms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dralysstore.com\/blog\/academy-sports-and-outdoors-omnichannel-includes-ai-platforms\/","title":{"rendered":"Academy Sports and Outdoors: omnichannel includes AI platforms"},"content":{"rendered":"
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For Academy Sports and Outdoors, the term omnichannel no longer refers solely to the integration between a retailer\u2019s website, mobile app and physical store; it now includes artificial intelligence (AI) platforms, such as the large-language models (LLMs) OpenAI\u2019s ChatGPT and Google\u2019s Gemini.<\/p>\n

And like integrating any other channel into the retailer\u2019s operations, that means connecting the data. Sumit Anand, chief information officer at Academy Sports and Outdoors, told Digital Commerce 360 that it starts with product catalogs.<\/p>\n

It \u201call boils down to how we mature our product feeds for one of them [the channels], and that can be scaled across the others,\u201d Anand said. \u201cSo from an ecosystem perspective, the world doesn\u2019t change much. From a scale perspective, it\u2019s just a matter of getting it right and continuing to mature it because the refinement in this is going to be key.\u201d<\/p>\n

That scaling is critical for retailers that have thousands, or hundreds of thousands, of stock-keeping units (SKUs). Anand said Academy Sports enhances its product attributes \u2014 and by extension, its feeds \u2014 in \u201cwaves, by department. There\u2019s a whole method that we follow. Otherwise, this could be a never-ending thing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Academy Sports and Outdoors is currently 142nd in the Top 2000 Database<\/a>. The database ranks North America\u2019s largest online retailers by their annual ecommerce sales and more.<\/p>\n

Academy Sports works AI platforms into omnichannel strategy<\/h2>\n

Anand said Academy Sports creates product feeds that connect its catalog to its website, mobile app, LLMs and external marketplaces such as DoorDash\u2019s, which the retailer has been on for about a year and a half.<\/p>\n

To make these omnichannel experiences work, he said, Academy Sports starts with findability on the site. That includes focusing on data, consumers\u2019 carts, attribution, product searchability and presentment, he said. Landing pages must have the prerequisite product attributes, he said, but also \u201cinviting\u201d visuals.<\/p>\n

And when it comes to product discovery, Anand said Academy Sports is working on moving from static search toward agentic search. That refers to using agentic AI tools to allow conversational, natural-language phrasing to look up products.<\/p>\n

To make all this happen, Anand said, Academy Sports is using AI for content enrichment. That means adding metadata to products to make it easier for other AI tools to discover and display those products for consumers.<\/p>\n

He gave an example that a product could have a dozen attributes at first.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen we\u2019ll have scraping services that\u2019ll help us inform and add another five,\u201d Anand said. \u201cThen we have this AI tool that we\u2019re using that goes on the web and figures out: Are there any other attributes that could increase searchability or findability? And that comes up with a list of attributes that we can add.\u201d<\/p>\n

From there, Academy Sports\u2019 merchandising team \u2014 humans \u2014 looks at the attributes to determine which of them are most relevant for the retailer\u2019s website based on its customer base.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Academy Sports wants to \u2018modernize\u2019 its GEO approach<\/h2>\n

Anand also said Academy Sports is on the short list of retailers partnering with Google on four initiatives:<\/p>\n

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  1. Universal Commerce Protocol<\/a>, or UCP<\/strong>, to facilitate the agentic commerce in Google\u2019s AI Mode. The UCP is an open standard Google co-developed with\u00a0Shopify<\/a>. It determines how agentic AI and ecommerce platforms can interact.<\/li>\n
  2. Conversational Attributes Pilot.<\/strong> This helps retailers make their product catalogs \u201cAI-ready\u201d and improve discovery in Google\u2019s AI Mode.<\/li>\n
  3. Direct Offers Pilot.<\/strong> Direct offers allows advertisers to present exclusive offers for shoppers who are ready to buy directly in AI Mode.<\/li>\n
  4. Business Agent.<\/strong> Google called this tool a virtual sales associate that can answer product questions in a brand\u2019s voice. Business Agent is live with Lowe\u2019s, Michael\u2019s, Poshmark and Reebok, among other retailers, Google said.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \u201cAnd we really believe once we launch these pilots with Google, it really is going to set our product feeds on a maturity set that allows us to modernize our GEO efforts,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

    Similar to search engine optimization (SEO), generative engine optimization (GEO) is a practice in which brands seek to improve how their products and web pages rank in search results. However, it centers around how LLMs rank and discover online content using a mix of text- and image-based attributes.<\/p>\n

    Better attributes lead to \u201cbetter searchability or findability, [which] leads to higher conversion,\u201d Anand said. \u201cWe\u2019re starting with the basics.\u201d<\/p>\n

    How Academy Sports enables omnichannel fulfillment<\/h2>\n

    Ultimately, Academy Sports\u2019 goals are to reduce its cart abandonment rate, increase the units it sells per transaction and average order value (AOV) and \u201cdrive stickiness\u201d to its site. Each of those goals directly ties into how it manages its product catalog, which enables discovery across channels.<\/p>\n

    Academy Sports still has to fulfill those orders, keeping track of them across channels. The feeds update \u201con a frequent basis,\u201d he said, to reflect product fulfillment. Its order management system decrements inventory when the product is delivered or paid for, depending on the channel\u2019s settings.<\/p>\n

    To enable that from an enterprise perspective, Anand said, Academy Sports has invested \u201ca significant amount\u201d into its merchandising and supply chain platforms.<\/p>\n

    Academy Sports is also looking at \u201cplatforms that ingest a lot of contextual data to give us more insights.\u201d<\/p>\n

    On the merchandising side, he said, that includes leveraging AI applications to determine demand in a predictive manner. And on the supply chain side, Academy Sports uses its order management system and Manhattan Associates. It also relies on buy online, pick up in store (BOPIS) and shipping from stores for fulfillment.<\/p>\n

    \u201cYou\u2019ve got brick and mortars, you\u2019ve got e-com, but in the agentic world that we\u2019re living in, this space is changing, I would say, on a weekly basis,\u201d Anand said. \u201cSo it\u2019s a constant: How do we reinvent the way we want to show up to our customers, make it easy for them, enable an experience that really, really takes any friction out of the whole experience for them?\u201d<\/p>\n

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