AI agents seen as crucial by retailers to stay competitive, says Salesforce report

Investing.com -- Retailers are grappling with increasing costs, heightened customer expectations, and complex technology, but artificial intelligence (AI) agents could provide a solution, a recent report from Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) suggests. The report indicates that three-quarters of retailers consider AI agents, which can independently act across business systems, as crucial for outperforming competitors within a year.

The study, Salesforce’s sixth Connected Shoppers Report, is based on dual surveys of 8,350 shoppers and 1,700 retail industry decision makers. It emphasizes the growing significance of AI agents in the retail sector and provides insights on how retailers can adapt to changing consumer preferences amid increasing market fragmentation.

Retailers are dealing with rising customer acquisition costs and growing returns, which are squeezing their margins. At the same time, they have to navigate inflation, competition, and changes in consumer behaviors and preferences.

Retailers are focusing on AI and unified commerce to efficiently serve customers across a wide range of touchpoints. Unified commerce, a concept promoted by Salesforce, aims to increase revenue without additional operational costs. By connecting their sales channels, customer data, and operations on a single platform, retailers can offer seamless shopping experiences both online and in-store.

Michelle Grant, Director of Retail Strategy and Insights at Salesforce, stated that this unified approach enhances productivity and fosters growth throughout the business.

Consumer behaviors are changing, leading to increasingly complex shopping journeys. Although physical stores remain crucial, their purchase share is expected to decrease from 45% in 2024 to 41% by 2026. Meanwhile, digital spending is spreading across various platforms, such as marketplaces, retailer websites, brand sites, and delivery apps.

Retailers are investing more in AI, with 76% planning to increase their investment over the next year. AI agents are particularly useful in customer service, where they can automatically respond to inquiries, track orders, and manage returns, freeing up human representatives to focus on more complex interactions.

Beyond customer service, retailers expect AI agents to be utilized across various tasks and departments, including optimizing websites and marketing campaigns, training store associates, and managing inventory.

Unified commerce enhances the capabilities of AI agents, as they require access to data across retail systems to function effectively. However, many retailers’ systems are disconnected, causing challenges for both employees and shoppers. According to the report, 81% of retailers claim that inefficient processes and technology reduce store associate productivity, while 49% of shoppers have abandoned purchases due to friction in the ordering process.

Fortunately, 86% of retailers are implementing unified commerce initiatives. By connecting cross-channel and cross-departmental operations on a single platform, unified commerce can improve efficiency and the shopper experience, and enhance the performance of AI.

Consumers are also ready for the AI era, with 39% of shoppers, and 54% of Gen Z, using AI for product discovery. For AI agents in particular, shoppers show a strong interest in optimizing loyalty points, managing returns, and more. They also want AI agents to have data privacy and security protections, the ability to easily turn it off/on, require approval before any purchase, transparency over how data is used, and available human customer service backup.

Michelle Grant concluded that the data shows that both retailers and shoppers are moving toward an AI agent future. However, success depends on building the connected technology foundation that retailers need while delivering the trust and transparency that shoppers demand.

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