Two Blokes Talking Tech
Tech Guide #696 - Kmart embraces AI to transform online shopping
02 Jun 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is Tech Guide with Stephen Fennec, the podcast that keeps you updated and educated.
Tech Guide, episode 696. We're closing in on 700. Hello and welcome to the show. Great to have your company once again. Thank you for listening. My name is Stephen Fenwick and I'm the editor of techguide.com.au. On this week's show, Kmart has embraced AI to transform the online shopping experience. What you need to do to bring older Macs and PCs up to speed is
And Dreamy has announced the world's biggest sports star as its new global ambassador. What will that entail? In the Tech Guide reviews, we take a look at the Honor Magic 8 Pro flagship smartphone. Sennheiser has announced its new Momentum 5 wireless headphones. And Xiaomi releases its 17T smartphone series as well. and we'll answer all of your questions in the Tech Guide help desk.
And it's all brought to you by Netgear, the company that keeps you connected, and Norton, the company that keeps you protected. Well, AI is everywhere. It's in all parts of our lives at the moment. It's on our phones. We're using different agents and it is everywhere. And now it is going to help transform your online shopping experience. It will if you shop at Kmart. Kmart has embraced AI.
It has introduced a new AI shopping assistant, and its name is Joy. Will it bring joy? That's the question. A lot of new functionality is available now, and it is the result of a partnership with Google Cloud. So they're using this new experience across its online, on its website, so on browsers, and coming in June to the Kmart app as well. Now, what does this mean?
Well, it means online shopping is already pretty compelling, but...
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Chapter 2: How is Kmart using AI to enhance the online shopping experience?
So there's certain things you can't do online that you can do in a store. For example, trying on clothes. That's one big change here with this new AI experience where you can actually upload an image of yourself and it'll use AI to see what you look like in various outfits.
So instead of being in a dressing room in the actual physical store looking in a mirror and taking the trouble to try things on, you're able to do that. That's one of the features of this new AI experience.
Chapter 3: What improvements can I make to older Macs and PCs?
The other thing too is you can – the feature they call what does it look like – well, basically what's it look like at my place is see it in my space is what they call it. So let's say you want to buy an item that's for your home. So I don't know whether it's a chair or bookshelf or something that you want to see what it would look like. Maybe you've got a kitchen appliance.
You want to see how that looks like on your kitchen counter. You're also able to do that as well.
Chapter 4: Who is the new global ambassador for Dreame, and what does it mean?
So you can see what it looks like before you commit to buy because how many times have you brought something home and it just doesn't look right or it doesn't fit or something's wrong and then you've got to go take it back. Well, these are the problems that they're solving with this new AI-powered assistant, and Joy is your online shopper, well, your shopping assistant anyway.
And how it works, apart from the try-ons and the seed in my space functions, it is meant to be a little more what they call agentic. So you can ask several questions. Look, you might say, I'm planning a birthday party for my five-year-old and we're having 15 people around. What food and decoration should I have?
Chapter 5: What features does the Honor Magic 8 Pro smartphone offer?
And so it will take all that information and then try to give you a recommendation. Or you might ask for something in a certain size, something in a certain style, and it will then go off and try to bring you what you need. It'll make all these suggestions. The other power of this new feature too is side-by-side comparisons.
There's some images we've shared on TechGuide of depending on what you want to buy, it compares price and size and various other things. Even with appliances, you'll see if you're after a certain item,
Chapter 6: What are the standout features of Sennheiser's Momentum 5 headphones?
it will try to surface what meets your criteria. And then you can then see the pricing and the size as well. It just really, it just adds another layer of online shopping. It actually, it makes it easier to surface the products that would be of appeal to you.
Chapter 7: What can we expect from Xiaomi's 17T smartphone series?
So whether you're looking for a certain type of product, a certain size, style, color, within a certain budget, you can get a response through this brand new experience. And You can use Joy across Kmart's online range and products from Kmart and Target. Target and other global and local brands are now accessible in this new AI Kmart marketplace.
I think Kmart and Target, I think they're under the same parent company, but... You can shop for Target stuff as well. So it adds a whole new level to your, a whole new dimension to your online shopping. So yeah, Kmart really stepping ahead of the opposition here. They're one of the first Australian retailers to do this. And I think the proof is in the pudding.
If it does result in greater sales, then I think they're on a winner. So check it out for yourself. If you haven't tried it, you can go to Kmart's website and do it. It'll be on the Kmart app from June onwards, which is now. So check it out in your app store as well. Or until then, you can also read all about it at techguide.com.au.
This is Tech Guide with Stephen Fenwick.
Now, I know a lot of people have a Mac or a PC or both. There's the computers that are part of our daily lives. And you know what? We're in a position now where because of the cost of living crisis and all the cost of living pressures that we're all feeling, we tend to hold on to our devices a bit longer, right? And a computer is one of those products that can age really quickly.
If you're doing a lot of work and just the age of the computer, new workflows and all these things we're doing today, if your computer is maybe four, five, even six years old, then it may struggle. Now, Because of these cost of living pressures, we're tending to hold onto our devices longer. So laptops, desktops, we're holding onto them longer than ever before.
So now if you are hitting that four, five, even six-year mark with your current computer, then chances are you've probably noticed a little bit of a slowdown. And as I said, your workflows are increasing and changing and your computer may not be keeping up. But the good news is it may not be the hardware that's to blame.
It could be years of digital bloat and unoptimized registry files, no defragging, background processes are eating into your system resources. Now, Norton, which is a sponsor of our podcast, Norton has come up with a brand new solution. It's called Norton Utilities Ultimate. Now, this is a specialized toolkit that can optimize and streamline your existing Mac or PC.
So on a Mac, I've got this on my Macs. It's called CleanMyMac and basically goes through, scrubs all the directories and all this other data that it doesn't need. So this is similar to that. It does work across Mac or PC. So there is no matter what type of computer. It even works on Android devices as well if you're keen to optimize that also.
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