Salesforce Introduces Agentforce for Retail: A Sector-Specific Skills Library for AI Innovation

Salesforce has unveiled Agentforce for Retail, an industry-specific skills library designed to empower retailers to develop AI agents tailored to their unique business needs.

This release provides tools for retailers to enhance customer service, assist store associates, and engage customers in innovative ways. For example, AI agents can now automate and streamline processes like order management, guided shopping, and appointment scheduling.

While Salesforce had previously launched 100 preconfigured, industry-specific AI agents for the core Agentforce platform, this new retail-focused release represents a shift toward providing specialized tools that enable retailers to build AI agents with greater precision and flexibility.

Driving Seamless, Unified Retail Experiences

Nitin Mangtani, SVP & GM of Retail at Salesforce, described the vision behind Agentforce for Retail:

“Salesforce is helping retailers deliver seamless, unified shopping experiences across both the physical and digital realms of retail, driving productivity advancements and business growth across their entire enterprise.”

This move aligns with Salesforce’s broader commitment to delivering sector-specific AI innovations, expanding the Agentforce offering into targeted solutions that meet the distinct demands of industries like retail.

---

Agentforce for Retail: Core Capabilities

Commerce Skills for Order Management

These skills empower retailers to offer self-service order support, helping reduce costs while boosting customer loyalty. Customers can:

• Update payment and shipping details
• Handle uneven exchanges
• Check order statuses across their preferred communication channels

Commerce Skills for Guided Shopping

Using natural language, customers can receive personalized product recommendations based on behavior, inventory, and operational data. They can also:

• Search for products
• Add items to their cart
• Complete purchases conversationally, creating a concierge-like shopping experience

Field Service Skills for Appointment Scheduling

Service representatives can use AI-powered tools to streamline the scheduling of deliveries, installations, or consultations. Real-time availability updates improve efficiency and enhance customer satisfaction.

Marketing Skills for Loyalty Promotion Creation

Marketers can use conversational prompts informed by shopper data, point-of-sale (POS) insights, and segmentation to design loyalty campaigns. These tools also assist in creating personalized email content and subject lines to drive higher engagement.

---

Retail Cloud with Modern POS: A Complementary Innovation

In addition to Agentforce for Retail, Salesforce announced the Retail Cloud with Modern POS, a cloud-based point-of-sale solution designed to unify online and offline shopping experiences.

Key features include:

• Clienteling: Enables associates to access shopper profiles and deliver personalized service
• Inventory Management: Tracks and updates inventory across channels in real time
• Endless Aisle: Ensures customers can purchase items not available in-store

The POS system also incorporates AI capabilities such as:

• Voice assistance
• Return fraud detection
• Personalized product recommendations

Shoppers benefit from flexible fulfillment options, including buy-online-pickup-in-store (BOPIS) and omni-exchanges. Each cart item can have unique fulfillment methods, optimizing supply chain costs while enhancing convenience.

Mangtani noted, “Together, AI-fueled digital labor and a modern POS can unlock a new scale of operational capacity for retailers.”

---

The Evolution of Agentforce: A Platform for Digital Labor

In late 2024, Salesforce launched Agentforce 2.0, branding it as “The Digital Labor Platform.” This expanded version introduced enhanced capabilities aimed at helping businesses streamline operations and adopt AI-driven automation on a larger scale.

Agentforce for Retail builds on this foundation, offering retailers the tools to reimagine customer engagement, boost efficiency, and drive business growth.