Salesforce Unveils AI-Powered Retail Solutions: Agentforce and Retail Cloud with Modern POS

Salesforce to Launch AI Agents and Cloud-Based POS for Retailers | PYMNTS.com

Salesforce is set to release two new artificial intelligence-powered tools for retailers. One tool will make it easier for retailers to build AI agents, while the other will provide a cloud-based point-of-sale (POS) system to help with online and offline shopping, the company said in a Friday (Jan. 10) press release. Components of these tools are scheduled to be rolled out from February to April, according to the release. "Together, AI-fueled digital labor and a modern POS can unlock a new scale of operational capacity for retailers," Nitin Mangtani, senior vice president and general manager of retail at Salesforce, said in the release. Agentforce for Retail will offer a new library of pre-built agent skills that will help retailers automate things like order management, guided shopping, appointment scheduling and loyalty promotion creation, according to the release. They will complement the skills Salesforce already offers for merchandisers, marketers and customer service reps. Retail Cloud with Modern POS will help retailers serve customers online and offline with features like mobile POS, clienteling, endless aisle, mixed cart and omnichannel fulfillment, and inventory management, per the release. "With these latest Agentforce skills for retail and a cloud-based, intuitive POS system, Salesforce is helping retailers deliver seamless, unified shopping experiences across both the physical and digital realms of retail that drive productivity advancements and business growth across their entire enterprise," Mangtani said in the release. Salesforce is among the software giants that have placed AI agents at the core of their AI plans. While AI copilots have flourished following the popularity of ChatGPT, AI agents are designed to take things further by performing tasks or providing services autonomously. On Thursday (Jan. 9), Talkdesk introduced AI Agents for Retail that can perform tasks like customer identification and authentication, real-time order status, tracking and updates, shipping address modifications and connecting customers with in-store specialists. On the same day, Zebra Technologies debuted a new set of AI tools for frontline retail workers and said it will add a new suite of AI agents in the second quarter. The suite will include things like a knowledge agent that will give workers the information they need, when they need it, and a sales agent that will help with product-related questions.

Salesforce brings an AI-powered digital labor force to retailers - SiliconANGLE

Salesforce brings an AI-powered digital labor force to retailers Salesforce Inc. is targeting retailers with its latest artificial intelligence innovations announced today, including a customized version of the Agentforce platform and a new product called Retail Cloud with Modern POS. The new tools will help to boost the productivity of store associates, digital merchants and customer service teams and help them to provide more personalized experiences, the company said. Agentforce is the company's platform for building so-called AI agents, which are AI algorithms that go beyond the capabilities of traditional chatbots, performing more complex tasks on behalf of users with minimal intervention. AI agents are one of the hottest trends in AI right now, and Salesforce is refining the technology to make it more useful to customers in the retail industry. With Agentforce for Retail, customers can access an extensive library of prebuilt AI agent skills, which are aimed at making it easier for teams to create customized AI agents specifically for tasks within their organizations. It envisions its customers creating AI agents for order management, guided shopping, loyalty promotion creation, appointment scheduling and delivering personalization at large scale. Salesforce aims to help retail organizations adopt fully autonomous AI agents as trusted team members that can handle various time-consuming tasks without human supervision, so they can free up their human workers to focus on more valuable and creative work. It believes that by deploying highly scalable "digital labor," it will help retailers enhance the productivity of their workers, automating tasks such responding to customers in real time, issuing returns, modifying orders, managing inventory and so on. The new Agentforce skills for retailers include "commerce skills for order management," enabling retailers to offer self-service order serving options to consumers. The idea is that consumers can engage with a chatbot in their normal voice to update things such as their payment information, shipping address and so on, or inquire about the status of an order. With its "commerce skills for guided shopping," Salesforce wants to help retailers deliver personalized concierge services to shoppers. Its agents will engage with consumers using natural language, and draw on the shopper's history and the current interaction to recommend products, based on what's available in the company's inventory. The "field service skills for appointment scheduling" can assist customer service agents in booking appointments for deliveries, installations and consultations, while the "marketing skills for loyalty promotion creation" enable AI agents to create new loyalty promotions customized for each shopper. Meanwhile, Retail Cloud with Modern POS provides retailers with a modern, user-friendly and cloud-based point of sale system that unites online and offline sales and inventory data within a single platform. It allows store associates to better serve customers with features for clienteling, which make it possible to quickly update a shopper's profile, and inventory management, so they can view and update inventory in real-time. Other features for store associates include actionable analytics based on omnichannel customer, order, inventory and sales performance data, return fraud alerts and personalized product recommendations Additionally, Retail Cloud with Modern POS provides shoppers with more options for product deliveries and exchanging goods. By using what it calls an "omni-cart architecture," the system allows each line item to define its own fulfillment method, such as buy online and pickup in store, buy online and return in store, and so on. It also supports offline checkouts with encrypted transactions that can be processed the moment the system reconnects to the internet, enabling sales during internet outages or in remote locations. The entire system is fully integrated with Salesforce's customer relationship management platform, including products like Commerce Cloud, Order Management and Service Cloud, meaning retailers can access customer data insights, product information databases and more. Salesforce argues that such tools are essential for retailers, citing a study from last year that shows how 81% of retail executives believe inefficient processes are a drain on employee productivity. The study found that the average store associate logs into 16 applications and systems each day, and lacks a single, actionable view of their customers, hurting their productivity. Nitin Mangtani, Salesforce's senior vice president and general manager of retail, believes the combination of AI-powered digital labor and a modern POS system can enhance the operational capacity of retailers. "With these latest Agentforce skills for retail and a cloud-based, intuitive POS system, Salesforce is helping retailers deliver seamless, unified shopping experiences across both the physical and digital realms of retail," he said.

Salesforce Launches Retail Cloud And Agentforce Solutions: Details - Salesforce (NYSE:CRM)

New solutions offer advanced AI tools for shopping experiences; Retail Cloud with POS launches April 2025. Salesforce, Inc. CRM shares are trading lower on Friday. The company introduced two new AI-driven solutions for retailers: Agentforce for Retail and Retail Cloud with Modern POS. These solutions aim to enhance productivity for store associates, customer service teams, digital merchants and deliver more personalized shopping experiences. Agentforce for Retail offers a pre-built library of agent skills, enabling retailers to deploy AI agents that automate tasks like order management and appointment scheduling, improving shopper engagement at scale. On the other hand, Retail Cloud with Modern POS integrates online and in-store data into a unified platform, providing mobile POS, clienteling, endless aisle, mixed cart checkout, omnichannel fulfillment, and inventory management, helping associates serve customers more efficiently. The company stated that Retail Cloud with Modern POS is expected to be generally available by April 2025. Additionally, Salesforce will introduce enhanced reasoning and retrieval-augmented generation capabilities in February 2025. Also, Commerce Skills for Guided Shopping, which includes features such as product search, product recommendations, add to cart, re-order, and WISMO (Where Is My Order), will be available in March 2025, alongside Commerce Skills for Order Management. Notably, SharkNinja and Saks are using Salesforce solutions to enhance employee efficiency and improve customer interactions. Nitin Mangtani, SVP and GM of Retail at Salesforce, said that the combination of AI-powered digital tools and a modern POS system can significantly expand retailers' operational capabilities. With the newly introduced Agentforce skills and an intuitive cloud-based POS solution, Salesforce aims to enable retailers to provide seamless, connected shopping experiences across both physical and digital channels, driving efficiency gains and fueling enterprise-wide growth. Investors can gain exposure to the stock via iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF IGV and First Trust DJ Internet Index Fund FDN. Price Action: CRM shares are down 2.41% at $319.03 at the last check Friday. Read Next: Palantir, Salesforce, And Snowflake Made The Cut, But 2 'Magnificent 7' Giants Left Out From Dan Ives' Top 10 Tech Winners For The AI Revolution In 2025 List Image via Shutterstock. CRMSalesforce Inc $319.22-2.35% Overview Rating: Good 62.5% Technicals Analysis 100 0100 Financials Analysis 40 0100 Watchlist Overview FDNFirst Trust DJ Internet Index Fund $243.17-1.52% IGViShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF $97.46-1.75% Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs