Practical Applications and Benefits for AI in B2B E-Commerce

B2B, rightly or wrongly, has always been painted as a late adopter of technology. When e-commerce took off in the D2C space, B2B was still primarily working through email and fax. As omnichannel made the offline-online experience a seamless transition in stores like Best Buy and Macy’s, B2B businesses were struggling with siloed orders.

Now, Generative AI (GenAI) is tipped to be the major inflection point across scores of industries, and e-commerce is no exception. From automation to search and discovery, AI can provide a host of improvements to B2B e-commerce companies. Unlike in the past, where B2B businesses were playing catch-up, today B2B e-commerce companies can strike while the iron is hot and use these emerging technologies to evolve their businesses.

Sana Commerce partnered with WBR Insights and B2B Online to engage 100 leaders in the B2B space about the impact of Generative AI on e-commerce.

What we discovered was exciting – not only did AI have benefits for B2B businesses, but also for the B2B buyers who frequent these e-commerce sites.

How AI has changed the game for B2B

To clarify, AI has been used in businesses and consumer tools for quite some time. The Spotify algorithm that suggests your next song? That’s AI. Predictive Credit Card Fraud Detection? That’s also AI. Stockfish – the unbeatable Chess Engine – that’s AI again.

This type of AI, known as “traditional AI” or “predictive AI,” excels at solving problems and recognizing patterns.

The new school of AI, the one that is causing a paradigm shift in businesses, is “generative AI” or “GenAI.”

Generative AI is so groundbreaking because instead of predicting or classifying, it actually generates. Where Spotify’s algorithm predicts which song you’d like to listen to, new GenAI programs will generate a song from the ether.

Both types of AI have had major breakthroughs in the last year. While GenAI may generate the most buzz with ChatGPT and Dall-E taking the internet by storm, predictive AI tools are advancing just as rapidly and providing major improvements to B2B e-commerce services.

How AI improves the customer experience

I’m certain you’re familiar with this e-commerce adage, “It doesn’t matter how good your product is if your customers can’t find it.”

Generative and predictive AI solve that problem; they help your customers find your product. According to our AI report, 69% of B2B leaders believe Generative AI will make the search and discovery process better. Accordingly, 84% say they are very likely or somewhat likely to invest in AI search capabilities over the next year.

Here’s a deeper look at how generative AI and predictive AI can be used to improve the buying process for customers – from product discovery to content personalization to seamless customer interactions.

AI will improve search and discovery

When Google came online back in 1998, it marked a shift in how we all search for information. Instead of looking up topics in reference books (such as encyclopedias or the Yellow Pages), or web indexes, we typed in a query into a search engine, and then were provided with links that could help us retrieve the information we needed.

The search process was shrunk. Instead of hunting for sources, we were provided with them.

Generative AI is poised to improve search by a similar magnitude.

For B2B e-commerce, Generative AI can examine buyer behavior and history, and then tailor search responses to the buyer.

How could this be useful?

Imagine we had two buyers: a restaurateur and a car dealer. Both of those buyers search for “oil.” Thanks to AI breakthroughs, the restaurateur will be more likely to see search results for olive oil or canola oil, while the car dealer will receive search results for engine oil.

Smart, right?

Furthermore, generative AI can provide information summaries to help buyers make informed choices. Already, we’re seeing Amazon rely on generative AI to distill thousands of product reviews into bite-size takeaways, such as “customers like the durability and flexibility, but complain that the sizing runs small.”

By feeding reviews into generative AI, and then relying on GenAI to provide B2B buyers with quick takeaways, businesses can dramatically cut down on the product search and discovery timeline, speeding along the purchase process.

Generative AI can create product descriptions at scale

B2B businesses often have a dizzying array of products with minute variances. A hardware manufacturer may have several dozen sizes of bolts that are available in as many different materials.

Writing a product description for each of these becomes an exercise in fending off boredom. How many different ways can you articulate the differences between each bolt? And how much are you paying someone to do that writing?

Again, generative AI can come into play to eliminate this tedious, non-creative work. Generative AI can create product descriptions for thousands of products based on a small number of inputs while still emulating your company’s tone.

The future of generative AI product descriptions? Personalized product descriptions. In the near future, B2B businesses could put AI to work to create product descriptions catered to the buyer behavior of each customer. Your customer wants the specs up front? Those can be frontloaded. Another customer gravitates to punchy descriptions? They’ll see copy for “durable, heavy-duty, stainless steel nuts” at the top of the page.

Generative AI makes chatbots actually work

How many times have you used a chatbot only to be greeted by a click-through menu, then a rote “hm, I’m having trouble answering that question,” from a chatbot that seems designed only to make you exasperated?

Old chatbots feel like a worse version of traditional search engines, scanning your response for keywords, then searching for help articles or pre-written responses in their databases.

Generative AI solves this problem. With Gen AI, customers’ queries are responded to personally. The chatbot doesn’t pull from an existing set of responses; it crafts a unique response to the question being asked.

This helps B2B buyers get the answers they need without going around in circles, reducing time to purchase and improving customer satisfaction.

Putting it all together

Here’s an example of how these AI tools can work together to provide a seamless buyer journey for the B2B customer.

Grover, a general manager of a restaurant, needs to purchase replacement parts for the restaurant’s walk-in freezer. He turns to his trusted supplier, B2BMarket.

Because Grover has already shopped with B2BMarket before, the site remembers the make and model of his walk-in freezer. So when he searches for “walk-in freezer thermometer,” he’s shown parts that will be compatible with his restaurant’s product.

Grover then clicks on a thermometer. The product description (AI generated) provides the specs he needs, and an auto-generated summary highlights the review trends. In this case, the thermometer is accurate, but more expensive than others.

Grover has one more question. He heads to the chatbot and asks if a technician could come to install the thermometer. The AI-powered chatbot responds that he can add installation to cart during the checkout process.

With his product found, his questions answered, Grover completes the purchase.

At each step of the buyer journey, generative AI was used to help Grover get the information he needed, eliminating frustration, reducing search time, and improving customer satisfaction.

AI improves your B2B businesses workflows

Generative and predictive AI are just as impactful for business workflows as they are in improving the buyer journey. This is why 57% of surveyed B2B businesses spend at least 21% of their tech budgets on generative AI, and 79% intend to increase this budget over the next year.

But how specifically are B2B businesses seeing the benefit from GenAI within workflows? The top use cases are automating tasks, providing data analysis, and enhancing decision-making.

AI completes repetitive tasks

Few of us relish the opportunity to manually perform rote work, such as copying data from one spreadsheet to another, for the bulk of our working hours. This work is tedious, usually non-skilled, and takes time away from the critical parts of our jobs.

Both predictive and generative AI can be used to cut down on repetitive tasks, freeing up employees to work on engaging and creative tasks.

How could they cut down on repetitive tasks?

Specifically, AI programs can be used to:

• Organize notes by subject
• Transcribe meetings
• Move data or text from one program to another
• Schedule meetings by finding workable time slots
• Connect disparate apps (i.e, receive a Slack message every time you get an email)
• Generate summaries of meetings
• Edit documents

Combined, these AI tools can cut hours of busy time out of employees’ workdays. This freed-up time can now be used on productive tasks that will positively impact companies’ bottom lines.

AI provides analysis and enhances decision-making

For B2B e-commerce businesses, AI doesn’t only automate routine tasks. One of its major areas of benefit is in data analysis.

When surveyed, 75% of B2B business leaders stated that gen AI analyzing data will be critical for marketing and sales over the next 3 years. A further 66% believed that AI will be very important for enhancing decision-making.

How can generative and predictive AI improve these processes?

AI programs can:

• Analyze existing and historical data to predict future trends
• Generate write-ups, analyses, suggestions, and ideas based on the aforementioned predictions

This 1-2 punch of predictive data and actionable insights will help B2B e-commerce companies stay on top of breaking trends and ahead of the competition.

Putting it all together

Here’s an example of how a combination of predictive and generative AI tools could streamline an entire team’s workflow.

A marketing team at B2Bmarket, has a new project. They need to create a marketing plan for the next quarter. Many steps of this project can be streamlined thanks to the different AI tools mentioned earlier.

• Predictive analytics analyzes existing marketing data to make predictions for future marketing trends.
• Generative analytics can take those predictions and generate insights and implementable ideas.
• AI scheduling assistants can scan team members’ calendars and set meetings quickly.
• Generative tools like Gong AI can generate summaries of meetings, including key takeaways and action items.

Synergistically, these tools provide a powerful workflow that reduces busywork, improves decision-making, and enables team members to take on more challenging and creative tasks – all working together to improve productivity.

AI will transform B2B e-commerce

For both buyers and sellers, predictive AI and generative AI will transform B2B sales as profoundly as the shift from pen and paper to online marketplaces. B2B firms must strike while the iron is hot, placing themselves at the forefront of this technological breakthrough.

Through our report with WBR Insights and B2B Online, we’ve compiled the benefits, risks, and next steps B2B businesses need to take to move into the AI future.

The benefits they’ll reap are significant: automated workflows, informed decision-making, improved customer satisfaction – all leading to a smoother and faster buyer journey.