Salesforce introduces ‘intent-aware’ search for agentic commerce

SAN FRANCISCO — Salesforce Inc. this week announced it was introducing ‘intent-aware’ search across digital storefronts on its AI-powered retail platform, known as Agentforce Commerce and described as the first platform that gives retailers full control over the entire agentic commerce journey.

With the upgrade, the platform offers an AI-native discovery engine that interprets natural language and real-time behavior to predict exactly what a shopper wants, Salesforce says. This helps merchants move from simple keyword matching to intuitive, conversational discovery.

Technology behind intent-aware search was developed by Cimulate Inc., a Boston-based startup that’s being acquired by Salesforce. Cimulate created CommerceGPT as a context engine designed to help retailers show up, convert, and thrive in an environment where agents — not people — drive discovery.

"Traditional search is brittle — it relies on exact keywords and thousands of manual rules that merchandisers have to babysit daily. But this isn’t how consumers search for products,” according to Pei Thong, product marketing director for Agentforce Commerce, who cites Bain & Co. data suggesting that nearly 80% of search users now rely on AI summaries because they want a system that understands intent, not one that scans for matching keywords. 

“If your site search doesn’t understand why someone is looking, you’re leaving money on the table,” Thong says.

The platform upgrade offers key advantages for retailers, Salesforce says, including:

• Deliver intent-driven discovery. Move beyond static keywords to understand shopper intent, helping them find and explore products through real-time, natural conversation.
• Surface more relevant results. Utilize the industry’s first commerce-optimized small language model (SLM) context engine that combines real and simulated journey data to provide highly relevant search results and discovery experiences.
• Boost merchandiser productivity. Remove the need for extensive rule creation and maintenance, while giving merchandisers all the tools they need to control AI-generated responses.