Salesforce Unveils Major Agentforce Commerce Updates with Two-Way AI Communication at NRF 2026

Agentforce Commerce New Features Announcement

Salesforce Unveils Agentforce Commerce Capabilities as AI Assistants Grow Retail Traffic Volumes by 119%

Commerce on New Consumer AI Channels: Agentforce Commerce helps merchants connect their product catalogs and checkout experience to new channels

On January 10, 2026, Salesforce announced a major update to Agentforce Commerce (formerly Commerce Cloud) at NRF 2026: Retail's Big Show in New York City. The update centers on two-way communication capabilities powered by AI agents.

With these new features, e-commerce businesses can engage in two-way conversations with customers via email, SMS, and WhatsApp, with AI agents handling personalized offer creation, upsell recommendations, payment processing, and order fulfillment seamlessly.

Industry Background and Trends

Interest in agentic commerce is rapidly growing. According to Salesforce's research, AI-assisted retail traffic increased 119% year-over-year during the 2025 holiday season. Furthermore, companies that deployed AI agents achieved a 59% higher growth rate, with an average 6.2% year-over-year sales increase.

However, many companies face a common challenge: individually deployed AI agents become "siloed," fragmenting the customer experience. Salesforce's "Agentforce 360" is designed to solve this problem by sharing unified context across sales, commerce, marketing, and service to deliver a truly integrated experience.

Key Features Announced

The newly announced features fall into three main categories.

Two-Way Messaging

Three new features—"Two-Way Email," "Two-Way SMS," and "Two-Way WhatsApp"—are being added. This represents an evolution from one-way marketing broadcasts to two-way channels where customers can respond. AI agents analyze customer replies, provide personalized recommendations, and complete payments on the spot.

Constellation Research analyst Liz Miller praised the capability: "It solves the manual problem of sorting through 6,000 email replies through automation." She also emphasized that "marketers need to fundamentally rethink their strategy," highlighting the importance of content design that assumes two-way conversation.

Guided Shopping

"Agentforce Commerce Guided Shopping" features conversational analytics capabilities that determine optimal actions based on customer dialogue. It automatically handles promotions, cross-sell recommendations, real-time inventory checks, and shipping calculations. Supporting 7 languages with 2x faster performance compared to previous versions.

Contextual Search

"Contextual Search" is currently available in open beta. It understands customer intent from natural language and returns more relevant search results. For example, it can provide context-aware results for ambiguous searches like "clothes for summer beach."

Availability and Pricing

The rollout schedule for each feature is as follows:

Currently Available (Winter '26 Release)

• Guided Shopping (General Availability)
• Contextual Search (Open Beta)

February 2026

• Two-Way Email / SMS / WhatsApp
• Order Routing for Order Management
• Data 360 Zero Copy Access for Commerce

Spring 2026 and Beyond

• Agentforce Actions for Point-of-Sale (Pilot)
• Agentforce Actions for Merchandising (Beta)

These features are available to Salesforce Commerce Cloud subscribers. Contact Salesforce sales for specific pricing details.

Impact and Practical Applications for E-commerce Businesses

This announcement has three key implications for e-commerce businesses.

Redefining Marketing

Email and SMS notifications transform from mere information delivery into purchasing channels. When customers reply to messages, AI agents continue the dialogue and guide them to purchase completion. This enables improved cart abandonment recovery rates and instant promotion conversions.

Optimizing Workforce Allocation

Two-way communication traditionally required additional customer service staff. With AI agents taking on this role, human resources can be redirected to more complex inquiries and strategic work. In Pandora's case, automating routine inquiries like "Where is my order?" resulted in a 10% improvement in NPS scores.

Implementation Considerations

Content strategy must be redesigned with two-way conversation in mind. Unlike one-way broadcasts, scenario design must anticipate diverse customer response patterns. Escalation rules for when AI agents cannot handle situations appropriately should also be established.

Conclusion

Salesforce's Agentforce Commerce enhancement is a significant announcement signaling the mainstreaming of agentic commerce. An era has arrived where AI agents handle two-way customer communication and seamlessly execute everything from marketing to purchase completion.

As the 2025 holiday season results demonstrate, companies using AI agents are gaining clear competitive advantages. E-commerce businesses should now consider redesigning customer experiences with two-way communication in mind, ahead of the February 2026 feature launch.

The next focal point is the POS-focused AI agent functionality scheduled for spring 2026. How integrated agentic commerce experiences that transcend online and offline boundaries will be realized will be key.

References

• Salesforce Unveils Agentforce Commerce Capabilities as AI Assistants Grow Retail Traffic Volumes by 119% - Salesforce Official Announcement
• E-commerce AI the focus of Salesforce Agentforce updates - TechTarget
• Agentic Commerce Needs Shared Context. Today, Agentforce 360 Delivers It. - Salesforce Official Blog
• NRF 2026: Retail's Big Show - Salesforce - NRF Official Site