Salesforce Inc. is rolling out yet more artificial intelligence features, this time for its Commerce Cloud platform.

The new capabilities are designed to help companies integrate purchase experiences into every customer touchpoint, the company said. Commerce Cloud is a cloud-based e-commerce platform for businesses with mobile-first strategies. It’s designed to provide customers and stores with a consistent experience across multiple touch points.

The service comes with many out-of-the-box features, tools and commerce portals that help companies to grow their online business. These tools allow users to streamline the purchasing process for customers, personalize their buying experiences and create mobile-friendly online retail portals.

The new AI features announced today and generally available now come in the shape of various embedded applications and integrations, enabling businesses to extend commerce to sales, service and marketing touch points, Salesforce said.

For instance, Reorder Portal is a new integration that helps businesses to grow their revenue faster by providing customers with personalized self-serve reordering opportunities. It leverages the AI-powered Next Best Actions in Sales Cloud and allows sales representatives to identify and target repeat buyers and send automated emails inviting them to reorder past purchases.

For instance, a manufacturer that sells surgery equipment to hospitals can use this to invite past buyers to buy additional items they’ll need, such as surgical needles and procedure trays, via a self-serve portal. There, they’ll be able to access all of their previous orders in one place and easily reorder what they need.

The new Order Support app can be embedded into various chatbots, self-service portals for order tracking and knowledge base articles, transforming service centers into revenue generators, Salesforce said. As an example, a shoe retailer’s agent who is assisting a customer with an order can use the Order Support app to identify cross-selling and upselling opportunities quickly, recommending a pair of matching socks to go with the customer’s order.

Another new feature is Pay Now, available within Salesforce Payments, which allows companies to collect payments more efficiently by embedding a checkout link into any Salesforce app. So instead of sending payment via invoice later, customers are given the opportunity to complete the transaction immediately through whatever channel they’re using. Salesforce explained that a field service agent could, for example, send a payment link to the customer via text message or email from within the Field Service Mobile app as they assist them with a request, in order to collect payment immediately.

Finally, Salesforce introduced Snapchat for Commerce, a new integration that makes it easier to create ads on Snapchat and direct users of that app to their storefront or even directly to a checkout.

“The advancements announced by Salesforce today are more about automation than AI, but users will appreciate them nonetheless,” said Ray Wang of Constellation Research Inc. “They deliver much-needed efficiency improvements, allow users to craft new experiences, and provide more personalization for customers.”

Today’s updates are the latest in what has become an almost constant flow of new AI features introduced by Salesforce this year. The company has invested billions of dollars in research and development over the past several years, with much of that effort focused on AI. Its latest innovations include new generative AI capabilities in its Sales Cloud and Service Cloud applications, which came after similar updates to Marketing Cloud and Commerce Cloud.

Salesforce’s AI investments have been expensive, though, and the company is looking to offset those costs by raising the prices of its software-as-a-service applications for the first time in seven years.

Image: Salesforce