Salesforce.com Inc. is infusing more artificial intelligence into its Commerce Cloud.

The company today introduced a pair of new AI services for the e-commerce automation platform that aim to help retailers target online shoppers more effectively. Both offerings use Einstein, the machine learning layer that underpins Salesforce’s core services, and are exposed as application programming interfaces to let companies embed them into their own services.

Einstein Recommendations API, the first offering, uses AI to generate tailored shopping offers. It enables retailers to bring the same kind of personalized product suggestions they display on their websites to other digital channels. The service can deliver offers via into mobile apps, in-store systems and voice assistants such as Amazon.com Inc.’s Alexa.

The other new AI service is called Einstein Visual Search. It enables shoppers to search a retailer’s online catalog faster by a photo of the specific item they’re after. The machine learning algorithms under the hood can analyze the image to identify matching products, or find the most similar item if there’s no exact match.

Salesforce is rolling out the two services alongside a third offering called Commerce API Explorer that serves a similar role to Einstein Visual Search but for developers. It’s a portal designed to make it easier for application teams to browse and compare the growing selection of API available in the company’s cloud.

Capping off the updates is a revamp of Salesforce’s existing High-scale Inventory Availability Service. Retailers can now show online buyers the closest store that has their desired product in stock, as well display product availability information via outside services such as ride-hailing apps.

Commerce Cloud is a relatively small but fast-growing part of Salesforce’s business. The company reported in its last earnings call that combined revenue from Commerce Cloud and Marketing Cloud had risen an impressive 37 percent year-over-year, to $489 million. This growth is poised to continue as traditional retailers ramp up their technology investments to counter Amazon’s rapid expansion. 

Photo: Salesforce