IKEA built an AI chatbot that took over 8,500 customer service roles. And not one of those people lost their job.
How IKEA's AI chatbot Billie handled 47% of inquiries, saved €13M, and retrained 8,500 employees into premium interior design advisors — generating €1.3B in new revenue.
This is the AI story we need more of.
Not machines replacing people, but machines removing the repetitive work so people can move into roles where human judgment, creativity, and empathy matter more.
IKEA did not just automate customer service. It redesigned the future of work.
The bot, named Billie, was trained to handle delivery tracking, returns, stock checks and the rest of the routine calls. It covered 47 percent of customer inquiries.
Wait times dropped, satisfaction rose, and the company saved more than €13 million.
That setup would normally end in layoffs. IKEA did the opposite.
It looked at what customers kept asking for that a bot could not deliver and found an untapped market: real interior design help.
So it retrained those 8,500 employees to give premium design advice over phone and video, walking customers through room layouts, furniture combinations and storage.
The new service brought in €1.3 billion in 2024, about 3.3 percent of total revenue, and IKEA projects it to reach 10 percent by 2028.
AI handled the boring questions, and the people moved up to the work that actually grows the business.
The question for any business adding AI is: what could your people build once the routine work is off their plate?
Official sources
AI Engineer at Unit4. Building intelligent software and writing about technology, productivity, and the impact of AI on the developer's daily life.
