Ron Johnson, the 66-year-old retail visionary who joined Apple in 2000 to build its retail business, is pushing back against Silicon Valley’s multibillion-dollar bet that artificial intelligence will revolutionize how people shop. While tech giants invest heavily in AI-powered shopping agents, Johnson believes the industry is overestimating how much control consumers will surrender to machines, and he remains convinced that physical stores will continue to play a vital role in retail.
Johnson’s skepticism comes at a moment when major technology companies are racing to integrate AI deeper into the shopping experience. Google is advancing its Universal Commerce Protocol, a standard designed to help AI agents guide consumers from product discovery through checkout. OpenAI has transformed ChatGPT into a shopping destination where users can research, compare, and in some cases purchase products without leaving the chatbot. The companies are betting on what the industry calls agentic commerce, where automated agents handle increasing portions of the buying process.
But Johnson isn’t convinced this vision will materialize as predicted. When asked whether he could imagine someone allowing an AI agent to select and purchase a laptop costing between $1,000 and $2,000 without ever visiting a website or physical store, his response was direct: “Honestly, nobody’s going to do that.” He argues that buying a laptop is too personal a decision to delegate entirely to artificial intelligence. Consumers want to feel the device’s weight, evaluate the display quality, and determine which size suits their needs. While AI might help narrow down options, Johnson told TechCrunch that most buyers would still want hands-on experience with a product before committing significant money.
This conviction stems from decisions Apple made more than two decades ago when Johnson helped design the company’s retail strategy. Apple’s stores were conceived not merely as sales channels but as destinations where customers could try products, learn to use them, and return for support when problems arose. The stores prioritized experience over transactions, a philosophy Johnson explores in his new book, “Shop Different: How Retail Revealed Apple’s Genius,” which chronicles his work building Apple’s retail operations alongside Steve Jobs.
Johnson points to a crucial distinction that separated Apple’s stores from competitors who attempted to replicate their success. While rivals borrowed Apple’s glass-heavy architecture, open floor plans, and even created versions of the Genius Bar, they often overlooked the human element. “The secret sauce for Apple has always been its people, the people in the store, and how they treat the customer,” Johnson explained. A key part of that approach was eliminating commission-based pay for Apple Store employees, unlike the sales culture prevalent throughout much of retail. The goal was removing pressure to sell and instead empowering staff to identify what customers genuinely needed.
Johnson’s retail career took a difficult turn when he took over J.C. Penney in 2011 with ambitious plans to reinvent the struggling department store chain. He was ousted less than two years later after sales plummeted. Reflecting on the experience, Johnson now acknowledges he attempted to change too much too quickly without bringing employees and customers along for the transformation. Apple’s stores had effectively been a startup that evolved organically alongside the company’s products, but J.C. Penney required a turnaround strategy. “I applied a startup mentality to what needed to be a turnaround transformation,” he recalled.
Johnson later founded Enjoy Technology, an e-commerce company that delivered technology products and setup services directly to customers’ homes. The startup filed for bankruptcy in 2022 and sold substantially all of its assets to Asurion. Despite this setback and his skepticism about AI’s impact on shopping behavior, Johnson emphasizes that he’s not opposed to the technology itself. “I’m a real believer in AI. I’m an AI optimist,” he said. He suspects Steve Jobs would have embraced AI as well, though not as a replacement for human judgment. “There’s no substitute for human intuition,” Johnson observed, recalling Jobs’ belief in assembling talented people to debate problems and discover innovative perspectives.
Johnson expects AI will make consumers better informed before they enter stores rather than eliminating the need for physical retail altogether. “AI will never be able to have you physically experience a product,” he said. In his view, the future of shopping isn’t about choosing between digital and physical channels but about AI agents helping customers arrive at stores better prepared to make decisions. Having heard predictions about the demise of physical retail since he began building Apple’s store network as online shopping was taking off, Johnson remains unconvinced that even the most sophisticated AI will fundamentally change which way people prefer to shop.