Agentic AI , Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning , Next-Generation Technologies & Secure Development

In February 2026, Dick's Sporting Goods temporarily rose to the top three on Apple's App Store free-download chart, surpassing Google's Gemini and coming in just behind ChatGPT and Claude from Anthropic. The surge was linked to the controversy surrounding Anthropic's federal contracts, which spurred curiosity-driven downloads of Claude. The apps close to it on the chart also benefited from this spillover. Dick's Sporting Goods didn't do anything special to earn the higher ranking.

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But it wasn't all coincidence. It resulted from the app's install base, strong engagement and category relevance, which allowed it to capture consumers' attention.

And three months later, the company announced Coach by Dick's, an AI assistant built on Adobe's Brand Concierge platform, rolling out inside the mobile app starting in June. The app was the payoff on an infrastructure investment the company has been making for years. Coach by Dick's isn't the start of the company's AI strategy. It's the most visible layer sitting on top of the others.

The Flywheel Underneath

Beginning with ScoreCard, Dick's free loyalty program, customers can earn one point per dollar spent and receive $10 in rewards at 300 points. It's a straightforward loyalty offer. The standout feature is Move, a fitness tracker integrated into the app that syncs with Apple Health, Fitbit and Garmin. Members can earn points by meeting step, mileage or active minutes goals, regardless of purchases.

While most retail loyalty programs only collect data during transactions, Move collects data when customers engage with the app. It transforms the app from a simple purchase record into a behavioral tracker, encouraging users to open it even on days they don't plan to shop.

The company also offers GameChanger, a separate app owned by Dick's that manages youth sports teams, handling scheduling, live scoring, stats and video streaming. Its purpose isn't to sell products but to generate valuable data: Which sports do young people play? How often? On which teams? And for how long? The company reports over 6.5 million unique active users on this app, with daily active users up 28% year over year to about 2.2 million. GameChanger users are among the company's most valuable shoppers. Dick's media division uses the data from both GameChanger and e-commerce to target advertising, including ads to parents watching their kids' games live.

By combining these elements, Dick's has created a unique value prop: a comprehensive, multi-dimensional view of a customer's connection to sports beyond mere purchase history. This dataset is the foundation on which Coach was built.

What the Coach App Is and Isn't

Coach is based on Adobe Brand Concierge, introduced during a partnership announced at Adobe Summit in April 2026. It features a conversational interface within the Dick's app that asks about a customer's sport, skill level and goals, then provides product suggestions, training advice and purchase guidance. The company also adopted the broader Adobe suite, including Experience Platform for collecting behavioral data, and GenStudio and Firefly for creating content variations at scale.

The new functionality isn't an off-the-shelf product or an in-house innovation. Dick's didn't create a proprietary model or a custom recommendation engine from the ground up. Instead, it licensed Adobe's agentic AI platform and directed it at its own product catalog and content.

So far, the adoption numbers aren't yet available. Coach was just deployed in June. All statements so far are aspirational, outlining the intended functions and the expected evolution of the guidance.

But CTO Vlad Rak has high hopes.

"AI capabilities, leveraging the company's expertise in sports and athletes, aim to become a pillar of strategy across all channels from stores to online, from shopping to performance services," Rak said.

The company's CMO, Emily Silver, said scaling up is a major goal. "Coach allows us to scale what makes us special - our people, our point of view and our deep connection to sport - and deliver trusted guidance through our app in a way that feels personal and relevant," Silver said.

By the time Coach was launched, the strategic foundation had already been established. Several months prior, during the company's Q3 2025 earnings call, CEO Lauren Hobart outlined its e-commerce strategy. She was clear that the company was "really leaning into app experience" as the core of its e-commerce approach. "Coach aligns with this vision. It does not define it. All of this creates a consistent strategic narrative, though it has not yet produced tangible results," Hobart said.

The Data Architecture Question

For technology leaders, a more meaningful comparison isn't Dick's versus other AI chatbots. Rather, it's Dick's buy-side integration versus Nike's owned-platform strategy. Nike has invested years in building its direct-to-consumer infrastructure in-house, including the Nike App, SNKRS and its engagement and membership systems, citing a preference for proprietary control over rapid deployment. In contrast, Dick's licensed an AI vendor's agentic layer, integrating it with internal data and enabling faster delivery. Both strategies are valid, reflecting distinct bets on where competitive advantage lies, whether in the model layer or the data layer.

The key takeaway is Dick's investment in the data layer. While the AI assistant can be replaced, the unique combination of purchase history, fitness behavior and youth sports participation can't be easily replicated by competitors, regardless of which AI provider they choose.

Another concern is governance, which Dick's has not yet publicly addressed. Combining purchase data, biometric fitness data and youth sports participation details into a single personalization system presents a different risk profile than typical retail apps. Nothing in Dick's public statements clarifies consent boundaries among these data sources or whether GameChanger data feeds into the same systems as Coach. It's important to ask these questions before the system's broader rollout.

What to Watch

The rollout has just begun, and key metrics are not yet available. Will it increase engagement within the app and conversion rates for Coach-guided purchases compared to standard browsing? Will Dick's expand the assistant into services such as fitting, training plans and GameChanger integration, instead of just keeping it as a recommendation widget? It's too early to know.

Right now, Coach by Dick's is a great example of how a mid-sized retailer has spent years quietly accumulating a behavioral dataset. Typically, AI vendors require their clients to supply this data. Coach by Dick's is discovering whether this valuable data, rather than the chatbot itself, is the real asset worth further enhancement.