Home Depot

The Home Depot is the largest home-improvement retailer in the world across its ~2,300 stores in the US, Canada, and Mexico. Founded in 1978 by Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank in Atlanta, Georgia, the company went public on NYSE as HD in 1981, making it one of the largest US retailers by market value. Home Depot employs approximately 470,000 US workers. The 2024 acquisition of SRS Distribution for approximately $18 billion is the largest acquisition in the company's history and significantly expanded its professional-contractor business.

Home Depot's customer base is split between DIY consumers (approximately 55% of revenue) and professional contractors (approximately 45% of revenue, growing post-SRS). The Pro customer is increasingly important — Home Depot has invested heavily in dedicated Pro Desks, the Home Depot Pro Xtra loyalty program, business-credit financing through Home Depot Pro Xtra, and increasingly white-glove delivery and jobsite logistics. The 2020-2024 housing-market cycle put significant pressure on the broader home-improvement category, but Home Depot has maintained margins better than peers.

Home Depot's AI strategy was publicly accelerated in 2024 with the launch of Magic Apron — a generative-AI assistant that helps customers diagnose home-improvement projects via the Home Depot mobile app. Magic Apron is integrated with Home Depot's product catalog and can recommend the right products for specific repair-and-installation tasks. Internal AI tools accelerate buyer workflows, supply-chain optimization, and store-operations decisions. The Pro segment uses AI for project quoting, contractor-loyalty optimization, and increasingly supply-chain and inventory visibility. Computer-vision AI for self-checkout and asset-protection is widely deployed. Going forward, Home Depot's AI focus areas include continued Magic Apron expansion, Pro-customer AI tools, supply-chain integration of the SRS Distribution acquisition, and increasingly the data-center and AI-infrastructure-related building-materials demand (which has emerged as a meaningful growth segment for Home Depot).