Industry leaders and analysts are abuzz over the future of commerce. Enhanced by AI, the next decade in your industry might bring to mind VR showrooms, digital personal shoppers, and other abstract innovations.

You’re not alone if this image of the future has you feeling a little overwhelmed. But you can quickly ground yourself by thinking about the reality of commerce and AI right now. In fact, there’s so much AI can do for your business in this very moment—you don’t have to wait ten, five, or even one year to start seeing benefits with AI in commerce.

Think of AI as an enhancement of the tools you already use

Have you ever used an image search to find a product you like? Often referred to as a reverse image search, shoppers have used these tools for years to track down clothes, furniture, and other items they’ve seen and want but can’t identify. The power of the reverse image search is easily and naturally enhanced by AI. Many brands are now using AI-enhanced image search within their e-commerce experiences to improve search results and quickly connect shoppers with the right products.

Writing product descriptions for inventories that continue to grow and grow has already become a bigger undertaking than any worker can handle on their own. AI helps automate catalog management by analyzing product images to create more impactful tags and creating descriptions. It can learn to focus on the details about products that customers look for and generate copy that is consistent with your brand identity and guidelines.

Once tags and descriptions are ready, AI will help finish the last piece of the content update and generate product images in a flash, helping you show customers your products in different environments or on many models without the need for extensive photoshoots. By analyzing current trends, customer behavior, and product attributes, AI can generate SEO-ready tags and descriptions that resonate with what customers are looking for, making it easier for them to find your products.

Whether you’re a large brand with thousands of fast-changing SKUs or a luxury brand with just a few tailored offerings, AI can help you get your e-commerce experience just right—whatever right means for you.

Help employees help themselves—and your customers

That’s not to say AI will replace your commerce experts. Rather, AI empowers those workers—who would ordinarily spend hours each week working on product listings—to focus on more value-added tasks.

When AI does the busywork of writing a basic product description, your experts can step in to take that description from good to great with more-creative thinking and a human touch. They can also spend that saved time on strategy, thinking about the kinds of promotions and products that perform well—and why.

Time savings, employee empowerment, and customer connection are the ways that real AI innovations are helping workers right now. Another huge potential right now? Assistants.

AI-powered assistants are transforming how customers think of CX and their interactions with brands. At the same time, AI is changing how brands interact with customers and approach customer service as part of their e-commerce experience.

By first filtering all customer service engagements through an AI assistant right on their website or mobile app, businesses are automating the resolution of simple problems and queries. When an assistant faces a customer it can’t help, it connects this customer to a customer service representative. This means service reps spend less time responding to requests for order updates and more time connecting with customers who need an elevated support experience.

As more customers get used to turning to assistants for help, they’re beginning to use these tools even when they don’t have a problem. Many brands are using their assistants to engage with customers asking for product recommendations or have questions about a product’s details, creating exciting new e-commerce use cases outside of the typical customer service context.

Achieve real wins right now with AI in e-commerce

AI cuts through the noise of repetitive everyday tasks to create copy, images, and connections that resonate with customers. The strength of AI in commerce is twofold: it can enhance the features your customers already know and love, and it can automate the back-end processes holding your business back from focusing on more-strategic tasks and achieving greater outcomes.

From assistants to catalog management, AI innovations just like these are becoming a standard part of many CX software offerings, including SAP Customer Experience solutions. These use cases should help you narrow your focus and think realistically about this technology. Still feeling overwhelmed by the possibility of AI for your business? Visit us online to learn more about getting started with the AI capabilities included in SAP Customer Experience solutions.