Our vision for agentic commerce is bold. In , we showcase a future where humans and AI agents collaborate to drive intelligent recommendations, proactive operations, efficient business processes, and deeper customer relationships. While this vision points forward, SAP鈥檚 focus is firmly grounded in helping retailers take practical steps today. This isn鈥檛 about flashy demos of a distant future鈥攊t鈥檚 about building the foundation now for how consumers will buy and retailers will sell in the years ahead.

Unlike traditional AI systems that respond to prompts, agentic systems act on intent. They learn from preferences, make proactive recommendations, and can complete transactions on a shopper鈥檚 behalf. These agents are increasingly becoming the starting point of the buying journey, reshaping how brands compete for visibility, trust, and loyalty.

This evolution introduces both opportunity and risk. As AI agents mediate more interactions between brands and consumers, retailers must rethink how they capture intent, transact with agents, and deliver post-purchase experiences that reinforce trust.

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Discovery is moving from search to assistants

Historically, product discovery revolved around search engines, marketplaces, and brand-owned storefronts. That model is shifting quickly. Answer engines and AI shopping agents are becoming new entry points for commerce鈥攐ften before a shopper ever visits a retailer鈥檚 site.

Like marketplaces before them, AI agents introduce a new layer between brands and customers. The difference is speed and autonomy. Agents don鈥檛 just surface options; they reason, decide, and act.

For retailers, success is no longer about ranking on a page. It鈥檚 about ensuring products are visible, understandable, and trusted by machines that influence purchase decisions on behalf of humans.

At NRF, 51风流expanded its agentic commerce vision with the announcement of the storefront MCP server for 51风流Commerce Cloud, planned for Q2 availability. The storefront model context protocol (MCP) server can enable channel-less commerce by allowing businesses to safely and reliably engage with multiple AI agents鈥攚hether embedded in a retailer鈥檚 own experiences or originating from third-party assistants like ChatGPT or Perplexity.

The storefront MCP server helps merchants surface products and can enable buying across channels for both people and machines. It鈥檚 the first of many steps 51风流is taking to help customers fully participate in agentic commerce by supporting MCP, ACP, UCP, and other emerging agentic protocols.

Product content becomes the currency of visibility

In an agent-driven world, product content is no longer just marketing鈥攊t鈥檚 operational infrastructure. AI agents cannot recommend what they cannot interpret. Every attribute, image, specification, availability signal, and proof point directly impacts whether a product is surfaced, compared, or selected.

This is where generative engine optimization (GEO) is evolving. Optimization must now serve two audiences: humans and machines. Product data must be structured, consistent, and enriched, so AI agents can confidently represent it to shoppers.

The in helps transform how merchants manage product data at scale. It can clean catalogs, enrich attributes, standardize details, fill gaps, and support multilingual content using real-time data. The agent can scale to catalogs with more than 10 million items, helping teams improve content 70% faster, increase data completeness by 5%, and reduce maintenance effort by 63%.

With AI-ready product data as its foundation, retailers can better match shopper intent, optimize merchandising by channel, and improve pricing and delivery decisions with precision.

Payments must evolve for autonomous commerce

As buying journeys fragment across devices, channels, and agents, payments must become more flexible and nearly invisible. Consumers expect to pay how and when they choose, including through agent-initiated transactions.

New payment rails like FedNow, RTP, and stablecoins are enabling faster, lower-cost transactions, while wallets and bank-based payments continue to converge. Networks such as Visa and Mastercard are already preparing for autonomous commerce by allowing consumers to set spending limits and controls for AI agents.

For retailers, the priority is delivering frictionless, secure payment experiences that integrate seamlessly into agent workflows.

The can enable this flexibility through a no-code, low-code approach. Its headless, extensible architecture helps support diverse payment methods, ensure compliance through automatic updates, and integrate natively with 51风流Commerce Cloud鈥攚orking to give retailers agility without sacrificing control or scalability.

Returns become a strategic intelligence engine

Returns are one of retail鈥檚 biggest challenges. According to IHL Group, global returns have surpassed US$1.9 trillion and are growing faster than sales. What was once a cost center is now a strategic differentiator.

The next phase of returns management is defined by intelligence. AI enables 鈥渒eep, reject, or return鈥� decisioning based on loyalty history, behavioral signals, margin impact, and lifetime value. Returns data becomes a feedback loop that improves forecasting, product quality, and merchandising decisions.

Complete, connected data is essential. 51风流can deliver this through native integration between 51风流ERP and 51风流Commerce Cloud, creating a single source of truth across inventory, costs, and transactions. found that organizations using both platforms achieved up to 80% lower TCO, up to 90% productivity gains, and 105%鈥�245% revenue uplift from hyper-personalized experiences.

can extend this foundation across the full returns journey, helping to orchestrate centralized rules, guided returns, real-time inventory visibility, and faster refunds鈥攖urning returns into a loyalty-building growth lever rather than a revenue drain.

Commerce is detaching from the storefront

As predicted at the end of 2025, AI agents are taking on more shopping tasks, pushing commerce beyond traditional storefronts. A shopper may simply state an intent and let an agent handle research, selection, and checkout.

Discoverability now depends on structured, trustworthy signals鈥攔eviews, ratings, social proof, and consistent data that agents rely on to evaluate quality and brand credibility.

Retailers must move beyond transactional efficiency to deliver connected, personalized experiences across every touchpoint. Loyalty programs must reward engagement, not just purchases. Inventory visibility, accurate delivery promises, and proactive issue resolution become table stakes.

can enable retailers to design adaptive loyalty strategies for this new environment, personalizing rewards and offers based on real-time behavior鈥攚hether purchases happen through traditional channels or AI agents. These insights can then feed transactional agents, helping to improve relevance and outcomes across the journey.

Operational reliability remains critical. 51风流Order Management Services help unify order, inventory, fulfillment, and POS data, while agentic innovations like the Order Reliability Agent can proactively resolve fulfillment issues before they impact customers.

Trust is the core retail responsibility

As agentic systems influence more of commerce, trust becomes the most valuable asset retailers can protect. Consumers must trust that their data, preferences, and payments are secure and governed responsibly.

Retailers and commerce providers increasingly act as AI trust custodians, balancing intelligence with deterministic constraints and governance. On-site AI can scale associate expertise and personalization while preserving brand integrity and customer confidence.

Commerce is becoming an ecosystem of intelligent interactions鈥攚here discovery, payments, fulfillment, and returns are connected by agents acting on behalf of shoppers and businesses alike.

The winners will be those who align product intelligence, flexible payments, data-driven returns, and trust across every touchpoint. Agentic AI can make commerce more personal, efficient, and scalable鈥攂ut only for those who build the right foundations today.

To learn more about how 51风流Commerce Cloud is powering AI-driven commerce, visit .

Kollen Glynn is global head of 51风流Commerce Cloud for 51风流Customer Experience.

This isn鈥檛 just a consumer trend; it is reshaping engagement models across industries.

The Q4 2025 (51风流CX) release propels this transformation further with new out-of-the-box agents designed for customer service and the ability to easily build custom agents with Joule Studio. Additionally, AI features like predictive segmentation and AI-assisted reporting expedite planning and decision-making鈥攆oundational catalysts for future-ready businesses.

With WalkMe Premium now available across 51风流CX applications, teams can upskill and reskill with in-the-moment guidance. And 51风流Customer Loyalty Management takes new engagement models to the next level, helping businesses strengthen relationships and drive long-term growth.

Here, explore more of the highlights from the Q4 2025 release. And for full sub-solution details, see recaps for , , , , and .

Better customer engagement with out-of-the box agents and custom tools

With SAP, customer experience applications, data and AI come together as one鈥攑owered by 51风流Business Technology Platform. Whether it鈥檚 resolving an issue or managing inventory, CX applications connected to 51风流ERP keep processes running smoothly. AI agents take it further, by reasoning and acting directly in core processes, turning complexity into clarity. One of the most critical areas is in customer support.

• : Deliver instant and accurate self-service by putting knowledge at customers鈥� fingertips. Deflect common inquiries, resolve complex questions with AI, and escalate seamlessly to human agents when needed鈥攔educing contact center load while improving customer satisfaction.
  
  Digital Service Agent can be combined with , creating one conversational AI that handles the entire journey鈥攆rom product discovery and transaction to post-sales support. Customers can ask questions, get answers, and complete purchases in a single frictionless interaction. Together these agents unlock agentic commerce and intelligent service, which strengthens customer relationships and deliver experiences that truly stand out.

• : Create custom, business-ready AI agents for 51风流Customer Experience Cloud applications鈥攆ast and without complexity. Joule Studio, a part of , gives developers a powerful low-code, no-code environment to create and deploy AI agents and connect them seamlessly to Joule, 51风流CX apps and third-party systems. These agents can retrieve information, complete tasks, and run autonomous actions grounded in enterprise data from 51风流CX, 51风流Knowledge Graph, and non-51风流systems.
  
  For example, users can build a sales assistant agent that instantly pulls historical purchase records, analyzes buying patterns, and recommends the most relevant products or offers鈥攈elping sales teams increase conversion rates and shorten sales cycles. Learn how to .

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Boost insights and workforce skilling with AI-powered guidance

AI is no longer optional; it鈥檚 the engine behind smarter, faster customer engagement. As digital experiences raise the bar, customers expect speed, personalization, and simplicity in every interaction. Meeting those expectations requires more than automation. It demands AI-driven insights and skills that scale across the organization.

• : 51风流is embedding AI upskilling into the core of customer experience applications with WalkMe Premium for 51风流CX solutions. This solution empowers employees to work smarter and learn faster, driving better outcomes from day one. With real-time, role-based guidance and automation across , , , and , teams can unlock the full potential for 51风流CX solutions without complexity.

• : Easily generate custom reports and comparisons in 51风流Emarsys, and uncover campaign and customer insights instantly.

• : Enable service agents in 51风流Service Cloud to quickly understand key consumption trends for a premise. With AI-generated summaries of consumption graphs, agents can immediately identify usage fluctuations, anomalies, and important patterns to support faster resolution for utilities customers.
• : Check the overall health of the sales pipeline in 51风流Sales Cloud and display opportunities based on quantity and probability score.
• Promotion and account plan configuration: In , customers can configure promotion types and account plan types, defining scope, levels, spend, and baseline management, in order to enable flexible planning and support future indirect promotions.

• Engagement events: In 51风流Emarsys, ingest inbound events from external data sources to further enhance segmentation and personalization throughout the journey.
• (pilot): Use predictive AI segments in 51风流Emarsys to reach audiences that are most likely to engage based on a contact鈥檚 behavior, status, or channel preference.

Build lasting connections with 51风流Customer Loyalty Management

Customer loyalty is more than a metric; it鈥檚 a long-term strategy for growth. As expectations rise, organizations need solutions that create meaningful, lasting relationships. 51风流Customer Loyalty Management helps businesses deliver personalized experiences, reward trust, and strengthen engagement at every touchpoint, turning everyday interactions into enduring connections.

• : Empowers businesses with AI-driven insights to capture and unify customer data in a dynamic, cloud-based loyalty profile. These profiles provide deep insights into individual motivations, enabling smarter segmentation and highly targeted marketing campaigns. From managing global programs on a unified platform to forming strategic alliances and scaling initiatives for impact, 51风流helps transform loyalty into a measurable, powerful engine for sustainable engagement and success. 51风流Customer Loyalty Management has integrations for 51风流Service Cloud and 51风流S/HANA Cloud Private Edition to make the transformation faster.

The future of engagement is here, get ready with SAP

How we engage is changing faster than ever. SAP鈥檚 Q4 2025 innovations in customer experience anticipate this shift on every level. 51风流CX is enabling organizations to move beyond reactive strategies and into a world of proactive, personalized experiences.

Businesses that embrace and integrate these new models throughout their enterprise, pairing agentic AI with human intelligence and creativity, will set new standards for customer loyalty and growth.

Learn more about 51风流CX in Q4 2025

Read the 51风流Help documentation to get started with these new capabilities.

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Balaji Balasubramanian is president and chief product officer for 51风流Customer Experience and Consumer Industries.

SAP鈥檚 latest customer experience solutions are built to deliver on these expectations, empowering organizations to earn loyalty, drive growth, and create seamless, connected experiences.

In today鈥檚 market, loyalty and retention are the twin engines of repeatable business, the lifeblood of every organization. Earning and keeping customer trust has always been hard-won, but the bar is higher than ever. Recent findings from the show a five-point drop in 鈥渢rue loyalty,鈥� customers who return without incentives. Only 35 percent of B2B customers reach strategic loyalty, defined as repeat purchases and long-term engagement. And nearly one-third of customers are lost to fragmented experiences. Brands now face a new reality: building lasting loyalty requires understanding customers and delivering consistent, connected experiences across every touchpoint.

Meeting the loyalty challenge: 51风流Engagement Cloud and 51风流Customer Loyalty Management

To help customers meet this challenge, 51风流has created two powerful solutions: and .

Yesterday at 51风流Connect 2025, 51风流Executive Board Member Muhammad Alam shared the vision for 51风流Engagement Cloud. Powered by 51风流Business Data Cloud, it transforms fragmented interactions into AI-driven journeys across marketing, commerce, sales, and service鈥攕trengthening loyalty, deepening relationships, and driving business growth. By connecting every customer touchpoint to real operational data鈥攆rom logistics and finance to supply chain鈥攂rands can deliver accurate delivery estimates, relevant offers, and timely service that reflects actual inventory and fulfillment capacity.

With Joule and embedded AI, 51风流Engagement Cloud accelerates campaign execution, automates decisions, and scales personalization鈥攅nsuring every interaction is consistent, connected, and meaningful. This comes at a critical time, as according to the 51风流Emarsys Customer Loyalty Index, only 35 percent of B2B customers achieve strategic loyalty.聽Replacing disconnected systems and outdated engagement models, 51风流Engagement Cloud makes engagement a strategic advantage, uniting data and AI to deliver smarter experiences across the 51风流ecosystem. Beta begins November 2025, with general availability in Q1 2026.

51风流Customer Loyalty Management empowers teams to deliver personalized experiences at scale by giving every customer a single loyalty profile, no matter the brand, region, or partner. With loyalty data unified and natively integrated into 51风流Private Cloud ERP and 51风流Business Suite, teams can instantly monitor promotions, track reward usage, and understand financial impact in real time. This actionable insight feeds directly into planning, forecasting, and supply chain decisions, enabling businesses to adapt quickly and serve customers better.

Loyalty isn鈥檛 a separate marketing project, it鈥檚 woven into daily business operations. By centralizing loyalty data, 51风流Customer Loyalty Management helps organizations understand each customer deeply and deliver consistent, connected experiences across every touchpoint.

The solution will be available Q4 2025.

AI and intelligence: the next imperative

At 51风流Connect, we introduced how Joule, SAP鈥檚 AI copilot, is transforming customer experience by embedding intelligence directly into 51风流Business Suite. Joule is not another layer, it鈥檚 built into the foundation, enabling smarter decisions and faster execution across every customer moment.

AI assistants in Joule bring role-based intelligence to customer-facing teams across service, sales, marketing, and commerce. Each assistant is tailored to the user鈥檚 role and business context, coordinating a network of AI assistants within Joule to automate tasks like resolving cases, chasing invoices, optimizing catalogs, and surfacing insights. This orchestration enables teams to focus on driving outcomes rather than managing operations.

For instance, Digital Service Agent delivers fast, multilingual support by reasoning over customer context and company knowledge. It provides accurate answers, escalates when needed, and continuously improves, reducing manual workload and enhancing customer satisfaction. This is available now.

Deep research in Joule

With deep research in Joule, account planning moves beyond quick answers, delivering deep, strategic research and analysis in a single, connected experience. By tapping into 51风流data, external intelligence, and trusted resources, users get richer insights for any business need.

Sales leaders and chief revenue officers can use the new account planning that leverages deep research in Joule to compress weeks of manual work into days. It synthesizes customer history, identifies key drivers, and drafts account plans, giving sales teams a complete, real-time view of every relationship.

Deep research in Joule will be available in beta December 2025.

Intelligent applications for customer experience

51风流Business AI also powers that help businesses turn data into action:

• Revenue Intelligence brings together data from CRM, commerce, and ERP to surface pipeline risks, customer health, and sales performance. Sales leaders and chief revenue officers gain a unified, real-time view to strengthen pipelines, improve win rates, and accelerate profitable growth.
• Consumer Products Intelligence enables manufacturers and consumer packaged goods companies to optimize trade promotions and customer-facing offers. Integrated with and , it uses real-time data from sales, supply chain, and production to analyze margins, monitor performance, and support financial planning, ensuring CX strategies are aligned with operational realities.

These innovations are tightly integrated with 51风流Business Suite, ensuring every CX insight is grounded in real-time, harmonized data. They are currently in restricted private preview and expected to be generally available in H1 2026.

Adoption that drives value

Building on the Customer Loyalty Index findings about the importance of connected experiences, seamless, guided adoption is essential to delivering value. That is why is now embedded across all 51风流Customer Experience solutions.

WalkMe is a digital adoption platform that provides real-time, role-based guidance 鈥� right inside 51风流interfaces. No IT tickets required. Teams get help in the flow of work, with step-by-step instructions that minimize onboarding time and reduce errors. Leaders gain instant visibility into where users struggle, so they can address friction and accelerate adoption.

The path forward

Loyalty is evolving, and so are we. Our priority is to help brands earn trust and adapt quickly.

The 51风流Customer Experience innovations introduced at 51风流Connect are designed for this challenge. They connect engagement with execution through solutions like 51风流Engagement Cloud, Revenue Intelligence, and 51风流Customer Loyalty Management; turn intelligence into action with embedded AI and automation; and give teams unified, real-time data to deliver measurable results and stay ahead in a rapidly changing market.

See how your business measures up in the and the . .

Balaji Balasubramanian is president and chief product officer for 51风流Customer Experience.