
AI has always been a hot topic. With the release of ChatGPT and LLM (large language models) the practical potential skyrocketed. Not leveraging AI now can leave retailers at the back of the pack. Based on the latest ‘State of Commerce’ report, 84% of the organizations that have implemented AI report moderate to major improvement in productivity, efficiency and revenue growth.
In this article we would summarize all Commerce AI related features provided by Salesforce. These can be generally classified in two categories:
Tools oriented to the shoppers
Tools improving the productivity of the merchandisers and other business users.
Quick Links:
Copilot for Shoppers
For retailers, an ongoing challenge has been to ensure product discovery is as optimized as possible. Smart search algorithms and well-thought-out categorization and filtering mechanisms are typically the first areas for improvement.
With Copilot for Shoppers, there is now another product discovery channel available. Shoppers can use a natural conversation with the AI assistant while browsing an online store. This allows them to explore products effortlessly, simply by typing their queries or preferences. Whether it’s asking about the latest fashion trends, seeking personalized recommendations, or inquiring about specific features, Einstein Copilot responds intuitively, making the shopping experience more interactive and enjoyable.
It leverages the customer’s browsing history, preferences, and past interactions to offer tailored recommendations. For example, if a shopper has previously shown interest in sustainable fashion, the AI might highlight eco-friendly clothing lines or accessories.
As of this moment, Copilot for Shoppers is supported only for Salesforce Commerce Cloud B2B/D2C and offers product discovery, reordering capabilities, and authentication. Separate Einstein Bot Models can be added to include support & post-purchase service capabilities.
Another useful capability, especially for B2B use cases is a conversational reorder. By using Copilot for Shoppers a customer can request a reorder directly via WhatsApp, iMessage or Embedded Chat.
You can check a Marketing Demo of the product here:
Dreamforce Commerce Keynote - https://youtu.be/QB1YZ4Qx4DU?t=328
https://salesforcedatacloud.hubs.vidyard.com/watch/dz2dLRAJRY6QTi7sx4pgu3
Einstein Product Recommendations
Einstein Product Recommendations in Salesforce Commerce Cloud has been around for a while. It provides personalized product recommendations to the shoppers. As part of the algorithm, it does not only use the individual shopper’s past purchases and behavior but also leverages insight from aggregated commerce usage of all Salesforce Commerce Cloud merchants (if they have consented to share the data).
Various product recommendations use cases are available. Some examples:
Top Selling items – provides a selection of best selling items. These can either be global or in the context of a particular category.
Personalized Recommendations – leveraging shoppers past behavior a number of items can be recommended
Customers Also Bought – can generate recommendation based on other shoppers behavior presenting products frequently bought or viewed by other customers which are connected to the one currently viewed
Similar Products – generates recommendations by analysing the products’ similarity to other products.
Complementary Products – based on predetermined categories a set of recommendations can be suggested which are related or part of set to the product currently viewed.
Einstein Chatbots
Chatbot could be a frustrating experience to users if not configured correctly. Hence, it is important for a retailer to do multiple iterations of configuration and testing to get it right. Salesforce not only provide chatbot as part of their Service Cloud offering, but also a framework with which all rules and responses can be configured in declarative manner. The chatbots are focused typically on self-service and issue resolution. and have great synergy with the commerce concierge to cover the full customer journey from product discovery to post-purchase support.
Generative Page Designer
Page Designer is a no-code tool for composing and configuring ecommece web pages. Merchants can use the visual editor to design, schedule, and publish pages by drag and drop components and configuring them to achieve the intended look and feel. Though the page can be constructed by business users, the reusable components themselves need to be built by a developer.
During Dreamforce 2023 Salesforce announced a generative AI feature that allows business users to generate such components. Users can just write down in natural language what they expect the component to contain and Generative Page Designer can automatically generate the code for the component. It supports both SFRA (traditional SFCC B2C storefront) and PWA-kit (headless/react storefront).
Generative Product Description
New tool in the merchandizer’s toolset focused in increasing efficiency and productivity. With the generative tools Salesforce now provides merchandizer can generate product descriptions, optimize content for SEO.
Smart Promotion Creation
Another area where generative AI can help merchandizers is promotions management. It can help with the creation of the promotions and all its configuration details based on a single natural language description. It can also search and suggest products and categories to be used as part of that promotion
Einstein Commerce Insights
Commerce Cloud Einstein Commerce Insights reports capture shopper, order, and product data and display products that are most commonly purchased together. Leveraging these insights business users can then devise and implement strategies to increase the AOV.