Salesforce Announces New AI-Powered B2B Commerce Features

Salesforce has been named as a leader in the IDC MarketScape for B2B Enterprise Commerce. Timed to perfection, Commerce Cloud have announced five new innovations to help B2B and enterprise commerce companies generate greater revenue while driving efficiency.

Let’s take a close look at the latest Commerce Cloud features that have helped to garner MarketScape recognition. 

Commerce Cloud’s 5 New Features

It looks as though Commerce Cloud has a lot to shout about, with some game-changing new features for both buyers and sellers to take advantage of.

1. Einstein Copilot for Buyers

We’ve heard a lot about Einstein Copilot over the past few weeks. This customizable and conversational generative AI assistant will benefit B2B buyers, who can look forward to a streamlined purchasing process with the following innovations. B2B buyers can now:

• Use plain language prompts and photos to identify products.
• Add recommended items to their cart and complete transactions within the same digital channel. 
• Take part in nuanced conversations with businesses on any channel. 
• Receive personalized recommendations.

“Einstein Copilot is going to change the game for internal merchandisers – this will enable a more intuitive experience when managing products and stores. You have several out-of-the-box actions that Copilot can leverage to help speed up the process and with an extensibility framework you’ll be able to teach Copilot new skills that are specific to your business.” Shane Smyth – CTO, Saltbox

2. AI-Driven Goal Setting and Recommendations

Sellers can now harness AI to establish key targets and business goals – all from within Commerce Cloud. They can also look forward to receiving customized recommendations in real time, while leveraging data from Data Cloud. 

3. Generative SEO Metadata Optimization

Metadata optimization is an important but often overlooked task. Commerce Cloud has taken this into account with this next SEO innovation. Now, using Einstein’s SEO recommendations, sellers can easily tweak the product titles and descriptions that are displayed on search engine result pages and browser tabs. A simple way to enhance product and brand awareness. 

4. Enterprise Scale Carts and Split Shipments

You may be wondering what “scale carts” and “split payments” are. Here’s a brief definition of both:

• Scale carts: Commerce carts/baskets that contain multiple/a high volume of products, especially those that need specific configuration. 
• Split shipments: Parts of an order could be delivered on different days. Similar to diners requesting food to be served “when it’s ready”, this applies to products being sent as soon as they are ready, as opposed to waiting for an entire order to be ready. 

So, this is good news for anyone working on large-volume B2B orders, as businesses can now support up to 2,000 line items in a single cart. This will give an extra level of flexibility to customers who need to split a single order into multiple delivery addresses or shipping speeds based on distribution needs.

5. Native Merchant Settings 

No more complicated integrations with third-party applications, as Commerce Cloud now offers fully integrated shipping, tax, and checkout. A big relief for sellers!

Expert Insights

I asked Shane Smyth, CTO at Saltbox, what he thinks about these latest updates and what’s in store for the community. 

Of the latest updates, what are you most excited about?

“It’s hard to pick out of all the latest updates, but I think there is the most long-term growth and power in Einstein Copilot. This capability is going to be a new superpower the internal merchandiser can use to increase their productivity. Think of being able to simply ask your copilot: What kind of coupons could I create for my loyal customers that would drive a higher conversion rate based on the last quarter of purchases?

“Currently, in order to pull that information together, determine the best approach, and then do the work to create the necessary coupons, it would take quite a bit of effort. With Copilot you could create an action that could do that all through natural language conversations.”

How do you think these updates will be used/adopted? 

“I have several customers planning to use these features, so I really do think they will be adopted quickly. Native services and updates to split shipping are some of the more commonly asked for capabilities I’ve heard over the last year.”

Any features would you like to see next?

“One of the features I’d really like to see in coming releases is continuing to make personalization easier to include. I’m thinking of things such as smart page variations, smart content based on either Einstein or some rules set up by an admin. I think this will really take B2B sites to the next level.”   

Summary

Thanks to Shane for sharing his thoughts about these latest innovations, which are part of Salesforce’s plan to harness AI across all products and features – a commitment to enhancing teams’ efficiency and productivity. Which feature are you most looking forward to seeing in action?