• A survey conduced by Salesforce says that only 3 percent of commerce organisations have no AI plans in place or down the line.
• The survey was conducted during the festive period, looking at the influence of AI on the commerce sector.
• 40 percent of organisations that were surveyed are experimenting with AI.

The disruptive nature of artificial intelligence was nigh impossible to avoid in 2023, and the same will ring true in 2024. While many industries are trying to gauge how best to implement AI, the commerce sector seems to be forging ahead unabated, according to the latest findings in the Salesforce State of Commerce report.

According to Salesforce, the 2023 holiday shopping season saw the highest average discounted rate since 2020, along with a notable increase in AI-influenced purchases.

Looking at the digital shopping activity of over 1.5 billion shoppers across three of its cloud portfolios, Salesforce found that consumers’ decision to buy was unsurprisingly driven by value, as well as individually tailored engagements and offers.

In order to better leverage the latter element, an investment and adoption in AI is being prioritised across the ecommerce industry. Here Salesforce found that only 3 percent of commerce organisations have no AI plans.

That said, current adoption is still in its early phases as, “nearly one-third (29%) of teams have fully implemented AI in their workflows so far, and that group reports notable benefits to internal processes and productivity. In fact, commerce professionals using AI credit the technology with an average time savings of 6.4 hours per week,” the company highlighted in a release shared with Hypertext.

The findings also identify that organisations across industries vary in terms of AI adoption. Here automotive commerce is leading the way in full implementation found at 42 percent of organisations, with media and communications registering 23 percent.

“Even if most commerce organizations haven’t fully embraced AI, the majority are poised to in the near future. Forty-eight percent are experimenting with AI, and 20% are evaluating how it will fit into their operations,” Salesforce continued.

Looking at some of the trends that are rapidly developing and evolving in the space, Salesforce noted that being able to reach potential customers regardless of what platform or channel they are on has become increasingly important, with AI assisting in that regard.

Ecommerce in particular has already seen a diversification in terms of the avenues that organisations look to reach customers as they are, “no longer limited to web or a mobile app, transactions now occur across a myriad of owned and third-party channels.”

“Cross-functional commerce touchpoints — known collectively as ’embedded commerce’ — are proliferating. Sizable pluralities, if not outright majorities, of companies have implemented such capabilities across sales, customer service, and social media touchpoints, among others,” the company explained.

“Customer service channels are emerging as particularly significant in embedded commerce strategies. Twenty-nine percent of commerce professionals report that customer service drives substantial incremental revenue,” it pointed out.

It therefore looks like the commerce sector is primed for disruption as the result of AI, but the lingering question we have is what will happen to the human employees along with way?

You can download and read through the report at this portal.

[Image – Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash]