Company Overview

Leroy Merlin is a major retail company specializing in home improvement and DIY, and is part of Groupe Adeo, one of the leading players in the sector in Europe and worldwide. Its history in Italy began in 1996 with the opening of its first store in Solbiate Arno (VA), and in 2025, the company celebrates its first thirty years of operations in the country. Today, it boasts a widespread network of over fifty stores and approximately 8,000 employees across numerous regions, as part of a group that brings together various brands in multiple countries and employs approximately 150,000 people. The offering goes beyond home and garden products to include experiences and services, including turnkey renovation solutions, organized into the bathroom, garden, construction, project, technical, and decor departments. The company's mission is to guarantee everyone the right to their ideal home—a healthy, safe, sustainable, and comfortable environment—with people (customers, employees, and partners) at the heart of its business project.

The Challenge

The starting point is a dual tension facing the Leroy Merlin Human Resources team. On one hand, the HR role is undergoing a profound transformation: shifting from a traditional function to a business driver and accelerator. On the other hand, while it is clear that artificial intelligence is now a strategic element for remaining competitive, thecompany does not yet have a structure that integrates AI into people's daily work. The concrete challenge is therefore adoption: how to make Human Resources a strategic player in the appropriation of these tools, moving beyond the idea that AI is only "in the hands" of the digital team.

The Solution

Wibo's intervention focused on building awareness within the team even before technical competence. The practical message was clear: AI adoption cannot be reduced to small tests and improvised actions, but requires governance and a structure (agile, modern, contemporary) capable of providing context for initiatives. Without this framework, initiatives proliferate without producing results. Also decisive was the facilitator's ability to quickly tune into the company's codes, language, and culture, alternating between strategic vision and suggestions that are concretely applicable to daily work.

The Impact

Among the many contributions of the corporate event, the one on AI was perceived as the most engaging: a new, non-overused topic capable of speaking to very different functions. The reaction was diverse precisely because each participant projected the tools into their own context (communications, social affairs, security), asking themselves what the concrete areas of application were. A key awareness also emerged: the value of AI lives "at the edges" of the process (problem identification, experimentation, result evaluation) and moving from basic usage to an "AI colleague" to which to delegate requires order, context, and method.

Conclusion

The interview paints a picture of an HR team that recognizes artificial intelligence not as a passing fad, but as a strategic lever for their evolving role. Leroy Merlin was looking for a partner capable of combining inspiration and practicality, dismantling fears and myths, and showing how AI can support daily work: in Wibo, they found simplicity, accessibility, and a direct language, consistent with the company's values. The intervention generated a journey of disruption, positive "shock," and new awareness, closed by a necessary moment of reassurance: the right direction is built together, based on real needs. It is no coincidence that, when asked at the end about the most valuable takeaway, the answers were clear: "context" and "integration," a perfect synthesis of a challenge that is as much technological as it is organizational and cultural.

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