Salesforce Delivers Next Generation Commerce Cloud with a Unified Platform, AI Agents, and More

The new Commerce Cloud features a fully unified experience on a single platform for connected customer experiences and greater revenue growth

Autonomous Agentforce Agents augment commerce experiences for merchants, buyers, and shoppers

Customers like MillerKnoll realize continued success with new innovations for Commerce Cloud, scaling their workforce and growing revenue across digital and physical channels

Salesforce today introduced the next generation of Commerce Cloud, unifying every element of commerce — B2C, DTC, and B2B Commerce, Order Management, Payments, and more — on a single, integrated platform powered by enterprise-wide data and trusted AI. 

Salesforce also unveiled several new innovations within Commerce Cloud, including three new Agentforce agents — Merchant, Buyer, and Personal Shopper. With Agents for Commerce and new features and functionality like In-Store Inventory Planning, Amazon “Buy with Prime”, D2C Consumer Experiences, and Salesforce Checkout, businesses can augment their workforce, increase revenue, and seamlessly connect digital and physical channels. These innovations also make it easier than ever for companies to natively integrate every customer interaction with sales, marketing, service, and partner functions.

The Agents for Commerce — Merchant, Buyer, and Personal Shopper — are designed to autonomously manage a range of tasks, including product recommendations and order lookup, without the need for direct human supervision. Grounded in a rich array of data sources — including in-store and digital interactions, orders, inventory, customer reviews, unified customer profiles, CRM data, and metadata — these agents enhance operational efficiency and drive productivity. By tapping into this unified data, these agents augment employees to provide tailored interactions, strengthen customer relationships, and contribute to improved margins. Each agent operates with clear adherence to privacy and security guidelines, ensuring that sensitive information is handled with the utmost care.

Commerce Cloud embodies unified commerce— giving businesses a single, integrated platform that brings every part of the commerce journey together with Agentforce agents to unlock new revenue opportunities and AI-powered efficiency, delivering consistent, personalized experiences across every channel.

Michael Affronti, SVP and General Manager of Commerce Cloud

“Traditional point solutions often result in ‘commerce islands,’ where different parts of the business operate in isolation, leading to fragmented customer journeys and missed revenue opportunities. The future of commerce demands a customer experience that isn’t siloed,” said Michael Affronti, SVP and General Manager of Commerce Cloud. “Commerce Cloud embodies unified commerce— giving businesses a single, integrated platform that brings every part of the commerce journey together with Agentforce agents to unlock new revenue opportunities and AI-powered efficiency, delivering consistent, personalized experiences across every channel.” 

Why it matters: The rise in data silos and multiple sales channels have made it harder for commerce businesses to deliver seamless, connected experiences that customers demand. Unifying all commerce systems and data allows businesses to personalize every interaction with AI, boosting customer loyalty and revenue opportunities essential for companies today. In fact, research from Adyen shows that adopting unified commerce strategies presents a $1.5 trillion opportunity for retailers globally.

Commerce Cloud doubles down on unified commerce

Commerce Cloud now natively connects all aspects of commerce — B2C, DTC, and B2B Commerce, Order Management, and Payments, with sales, service, and marketing — on a single platform. This enables a complete view of the customer journey with a shared catalog and user profile. By unifying catalogs, pricing, orders, marketing segments, and engagement intent, companies can deliver personalized interactions, increase loyalty, and grow revenue across every customer touchpoint. 

With new, native extensibility for Sales, Service, and Marketing Cloud, Commerce Cloud helps businesses tackle complex tasks:

• With Marketing Cloud and Commerce Cloud, businesses can leverage detailed  engagement and purchase data to create precise marketing segments to reach customers with highly personalized offers and engagements, and reengage shoppers with abandoned cart and back-in-stock notifications. 
• With Service Cloud and Order Management Support, service agents can check on orders, process returns or exchanges, and place orders on behalf of customers, directly within their customer service console.
• With Revenue Cloud and Commerce Cloud, businesses can create product bundles, offer and manage digital subscriptions, and streamline revenue options with recurring billing invoices.

Agents bring autonomy and agility to merchants, buyers, and shoppers

Agentforce Agents for Commerce Cloud work alongside merchants to engage buyers and shoppers through dynamic, conversational interactions that improve loyalty and increase conversions. These agents autonomously handle business tasks using CRM data, external data, and metadata, while maintaining strict privacy and security guidelines. For more complex, high-priority tasks, they seamlessly escalate to human support. Fully customizable, these agents can be tailored to fit any business or workflow. Agents for Commerce include: 

• Agentforce Merchant works autonomously with ecommerce merchandisers to help build and manage their sites through easy, conversational setup and goal setting. The agent can handle tasks like generating personalized promotions or writing product descriptions, streamlining everyday actions within the flow of work to improve efficiency and outcomes. Powered by data, the Merchant Agent offers proactive recommendations to boost product performance, push slow-moving inventory, and increase conversion in key shopper segments
• Agentforce Personal Shopper acts as a digital concierge, using generative AI to provide personalized assistance on ecommerce sites, chat, or messaging apps like WhatsApp. Unlike basic chatbots that are limited to answering predefined questions, it taps into a retailer’s catalog and product data, learning from shoppers’ behavior and preferences. This allows shoppers to use natural language search, get conversational responses, and quickly add items to their cart for instant checkout.
• Agentforce Buyer delivers an autonomous shopping experience for B2B buyers, making it easy to find products and place or reorder purchases with pre-negotiated pricing through chat or messaging channels. Connected to Sales, Service, and Order Management data, the Buyer Agent tracks orders and provides seamless post-purchase support, handling common tasks like “Where is My Order (WISMO)” requests, reducing the need for customer service interactions. 

Driving a unified commerce experience with new innovations

Powered by data, AI, and the Salesforce platform, Commerce Cloud helps brands anticipate customer needs and build faster, more seamless buying experiences at every customer touchpoint. Key new capabilities include:

• In-store Inventory Planning: Now generally available and powered by Data Cloud, this feature gives businesses real-time inventory data, insights, and precise predictions to manage stock levels, anticipate demand, and enables customer service reps to access product recommendations and add items directly to a customer’s cart during support interactions. Shoppers can also view accurate in-stock information by store location on the business’s website.
  • For example, after noticing a spike in in-store demand for pickleball rackets during the first week of June, a sports equipment company can place a rush order for more rackets from the manufacturer. Meanwhile, shoppers browsing online can see exactly how many rackets are left in the store closest to their home.

• Seamless D2C Consumer Experiences: With new stylized templates, faster page loads, and optimized site components, both B2C and B2B commerce businesses can now build direct-to-consumer sites that are intuitive, responsive, and easy to buy from.
  • For example, a medical device company that typically sells knee braces through distributors like doctors offices can set up a direct-to-patient site with the look, feel, and speed that consumers are used to in their day-to-day digital shopping experiences.

• Amazon “Buy with Prime”: With the Buy with Prime for Salesforce Commerce Cloud integration, commerce businesses can leverage the power of Amazon’s fulfillment network and the Prime brand to give customers access to fast, free and reliable delivery; easy returns; and 24/7 live chat. Merchants can seamlessly integrate Buy with Prime into their existing storefronts while maintaining control over their stores’ shopper experience, as well as automatically sync with Salesforce Order Management to update orders, promotions, and catalog listings. 
  
  Reviews from Amazon is the newest addition to the integration to help merchants increase shopper trust and conversion. It gives merchants the option to seamlessly display their Amazon customer reviews on product detail pages for Buy with Prime eligible items—at no additional cost.
  • For example, PopSockets, who launched on the integration in May, has seen a 45% increase in average order value (AOV), leveraging features like Prime filter and search, Reviews from Amazon, and integration of Prime orders into their native cart.

• Enhanced Salesforce Checkout: Commerce companies can improve conversion and speed up transactions with one-click checkout, payments integrations, and native tax and shipping merchant services.
  • Salesforce Payments expansion: An expanded partnership with Stripe and a new native integration with Adyen allow merchants to seamlessly connect and use their existing payments provider through a Bring Your Own Gateway (BYOG) model — companies will not need to recontract, switch providers, or build new integrations. 
  • Payment Methods expansion: In addition to pre-existing express checkout methods with PayPal, Apple Pay, and Google Pay, merchants can now offer Amazon Pay and Link — Stripe’s accelerated checkout — further increasing conversion rates for businesses.

Customer perspective: “We are focused on offering personalized experiences to each and every customer to meet their unique needs. Embracing the complete power of Salesforce Commerce Cloud and its connection to sales, service, marketing, and more, helps us create a unified experience across our portfolio of brands. We’re already seeing the increase in online sales and customer satisfaction.” – Frank DeMaria, Vice President of Digital Engineering & Platforms at MillerKnoll

Availability:

• Agentforce Merchant will be generally available in October 2024.
• Agentforce Personal Shopper and Agentforce Buyer will be available in beta in October 2024.
• In-store Inventory Planning is generally available now.
• Seamless D2C Consumer Experience is generally available now.
• Amazon Buy With Prime is generally available on the Salesforce AppExchange.
• Salesforce Checkout is generally available now.
  • Customers can connect their own Adyen account to Salesforce Payments in October 2024.
  • Customers can connect their own Stripe account to Salesforce Payments in February 2025.
  • Amazon Pay and Link by Stripe are available in October 2024.

More information:

• Discover the latest Commerce Cloud innovations
• Catch the Commerce Cloud keynote at Dreamforce 2024 on Salesforce+
• Learn more about Commerce Cloud

Any unreleased services or features referenced here are not currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers should make their purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available.