And while only just over a quarter — 28 percent— of e-commerce respondents say they are currently using agentic AI, 44 percent said they expect to use it within the next six months and an additional 21 percent plan to use the technology within the next two years. Only 7 percent said they expect to hold off on AI more than two years.
The Salesforce survey asked the survey takers what their primary focus areas were for agentic AI (which by the way, basically means artificial intelligence systems that can independently plan, reason, and take multi-step actions to achieve a high-level goal) and here’s what they said:
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• 35 percent said scaling AI cross functions or teams.
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• 26 percent said deploying AI in a limited number of use cases or workflows.
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• 19 percent said optimizing performance or ROI.
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• 16 percent said building foundations.
“AI is remaking commerce from both directions,” said Caila Schwartz, head of agentic commerce shopper insights for Salesforce. “Customers are discovering products in places brands don’t control — AI assistants, social feeds, delivery apps — and expecting the same personalized experience everywhere they go. “At the same time,” she continued, “AI is changing how commerce teams themselves work: how they merchandise, how they fulfill, how they scale. The difference is speed. A customer can adopt AI overnight. A business has more to get right: trusted data, connected systems, teams ready to use them.
“The ones getting that right now are the ones that will keep pace.”