As a $4.2B distributor operating in 20+ countries, ADI supplies the security, AV, and smart living products behind conference rooms, commercial buildings, and smart homes everywhere. With a comprehensive catalog topping 500,000 SKUs, professional buyers rely on ADI for speed, precision, and availability.

Yet legacy search technology created growing friction: high null-search rates, complex product queries, and escalating manual work slowed both buyers and internal teams. To sustain its growth momentum, ADI needed a modern, AI-powered search experience built for B2B complexity.

As part of a multi-year digital transformation, ADI set out to build an ecommerce experience that matched the expectations of its professional buyers. The team identified three pillars essential to delivering best-in-class B2B commerce: site speed and performance, intelligent search powered by AI, and clear visibility into inventory and order management. As ADI’s global footprint and catalog expanded, search emerged as the most urgent challenge. A double-digit null search rate created friction for both customers and internal sales teams, and the limitations of their existing search solution made continuous improvement difficult. “As our business evolved, it became clear that our current search technology was not adequate to support our continued growth,” said Stu Tisdale, Senior Vice President and Chief Experience Officer. “Search is the front door for our buyers, and it simply wasn’t meeting their expectations.”

Following a robust RFP process, ADI selected Coveo for its deep B2B expertise, handling complex queries, partial part-number searches, and customer-specific pricing; its ability to deliver value to buyers, in- store teams, and digital merchants; and its unrivaled machine learning capabilities.

Stu Tisdale notes: “We validated our B2B use cases during the RFP process, but implementation is where success is proven. So far, every scenario we’ve faced has been seamlessly addressed by Coveo.”

ADI teamed up with Perficient to implement Coveo across the U.S., Americas, and EMEA, leveraging reusable components and regional insights to accelerate rollout while maintaining consistent performance. Even with the mid-implementation acquisition of Snap One — operating on a different commerce platform (HCL) — Perficient helped deliver precise configuration and a seamless user experience across all sites.

Easier Product Discovery
Coveo AI search ensures professional buyers consistently find the products they need. Null search rate dropped 91%, while high-intent searches — including partial part numbers, UPCs, and complex identifiers — now return accurate, relevant results. On launch day alone, Coveo-powered search generated meaningful attributable revenue, improving both customer satisfaction and internal sales efficiency.

Operational Efficiency
Digital merchants no longer spend hours manually tuning search, creating pinning rules, or building listings. The Coveo Merchandising Hub reduces reactive work, letting teams focus on strategy, while in-store sales teams benefit from faster, more precise search results that help them serve customers more effectively.

Continuous Improvement
Coveo’s machine learning models observe user behavior and adjust rankings in real time. When customers search using unfamiliar SKUs or partial numbers, the system learns from how they refine searches and which products they ultimately purchase. Within days, these connections are automatically created, eliminating future null results and improving discovery for similar queries.

Implementing AI search at enterprise scale required ADI to embrace a new mindset: trusting the system to learn and improve. Rather than over‑managing relevance with pre-existing rules, the team allowed Coveo’s machine learning models to observe user behavior, adjust rankings, and refine results automatically.

“If you go in with a thousand search rules, you risk over-complicating things,” says Hunter Brady. “By starting with a clean slate and monitoring performance, we saw almost immediate improvements in search relevance.” Trusting the AI has enabled continuous learning, faster optimization, and a more precise, intuitive experience for professional buyers.

ADI’s success with AI-powered search has opened the door to broader applications of Coveo’s technology across the organization. As conversational AI experiences reshape customer expectations across industries, ADI recognizes the opportunity to leverage these capabilities beyond commerce.

As ADI looks to expand its capabilities, Coveo is ready to serve as a collaborative partner to help the business reach its goals and further elevate the customer experience.