Companies scale up with AI, but forgo result measurement

AI adoption is rising rapidly, but only 32% of companies systematically measure the results. This is according to research by Salesforce among 3.450 commerce professionals.

78 percent of organizations already use some form of AI, less than a third use agentic AI, and nearly half plan to do so within six months. 86 percent say AI raises the bar for customer expectations, 61 percent find meeting them harder than ever, and 68 percent have to do more with less. Implementing AI ranks number one as a priority and number one as an expected challenge, according to Salesforce in the report. State of Commerce 2026.

Unstable foundation

While AI may be at the top of to-do lists, the foundation upon which it is built is shaky. Only 32 percent say they have fully defined AI success metrics and KPIs. Salesforce itself concludes from this that organizations report success before they agree on what success is. Incidentally, the report does not include a breakdown showing whether it is precisely the companies without clear KPIs that report the best results. Only 27 percent of respondents say that customer data is fully harmonized across sales, service, marketing, and commerce. 59 percent say that their own tech stack is real-time. personalization cannot handle scale. 29 percent believe that the existing commerce platform only covers basic needs and purchase add-ons for personalization (46 percent), order management (40 percent), and content management (39 percent). Almost four out of five respondents see the number of suppliers growing.

AI agents increasingly a source of web traffic

Salesforce also reports that agentic search has grown by 200% since May 2025. Web traffic from AI chats has also increased much faster than total traffic, which rose by only a few percent. Other research also shows that the orientation phase among consumers is shifting. Half of Dutch consumers now use genAI while shopping, compared to a third a year and a half earlier, and among 18- to 34-year-olds that is 83 percent). That does not yet mean that consumers dare to let AI shop independently. In research across fifteen countries, Ipsos concludes that average 9 percentBut it does mean that customers are increasingly reaching customer service better informed.

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