Costco’s president and chief executive isn’t buying the idea that AI will thin out his stores. Speaking at the Economic Club of Chicago (ECC) this month, Ron Vachris told the room of Chicago business leaders that the technology is improving jobs at the retailer, not destroying them.
“We’ve not displaced people because the business is growing at a faster rate,” he said. “Those employees who were doing those tasks before have now elevated up to more of a forward-thinking role,” he added.
Automating the back end while keeping the human touch
Despite his caution about AI replacing people, Costco isn’t dragging its feet on the tech itself. The retailer, with more than 341,000 people on its payroll worldwide, has rolled AI into its pharmacies, gas stations, accounting, and IT departments. The point, in Vachris’s framing, is to make life easier for the staff already there.
“I don’t see AI making choices on items for Costco,” he said in the discussion, which was moderated by ECC Chair and President of United Airlines, Brett Hart. “I don’t know that we’ll ever take that out of the hands of a skilled buyer. AI won’t be doing evaluations with our employees, but there is a great place for developing AI systems, and it’s going to make us a better company,” he elaborated.
The market doesn’t seem to mind this measured approach. The company’s shares are up around 17 percent this year, pushing the market cap past $440 billion and securing its position at No. 12 on the Fortune 500.
Revenue in 2025 came in at approximately $270 billion, surpassing that of Microsoft, Chevron, and General Motors. All this while the iconic hot dog is still being sold for $1.50 and the rotisserie chicken for $5. Membership also hit a record 81 million in 2025.
An outlier in a jittery market
The company has also held firm on DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) programs while many other large employers quietly scaled theirs back. Vachris and the board have long maintained that a diverse workforce and supplier base feed recruitment and innovation, per The Wall Street Journal. This commitment was reinforced last year when a shareholder proposal asking the company to study the risks of its DEI practices was rejected by more than 98 percent of votes cast.
This people-first approach seems to be working as employees seem to stick around. More than 55 percent of U.S. Costco workers have been with the company for over five years, and roughly 23,000 have been there longer than 25 years.
Sources: Costco, Reuters, ECC (YouTube), Fortune, Yahoo Finance, WSJ