I’ve worked with digital commerce for over 20 years, witnessed technological shifts, platform evolutions, and changing behaviours. But what’s happening now, with AI impacting everything from consumer journeys to how we build systems and streamline workflows, might be the most exciting phase I’ve ever experienced.
AI is no longer something we talk about in future scenarios. It’s here now, and it’s reshaping the playing field for digital commerce in profound ways. At the same time, the need for trustworthy data is growing rapidly, especially as AI still tends to hallucinate or fabricate results. Human interaction and manually created content (like this blog post, for instance) will become more valuable. In a world of algorithms, we’ll increasingly appreciate what’s real.
At Norce, we see this as a moment to embrace the creativity that’s now blooming around AI, while continuing to strengthen the areas where we already excel. We already have clear strengths in areas like pricing, large assortments, and B2B commerce. Now we’re sharpening that edge even further. We’re not spreading wider, we’re going deeper. Our focus is on the customer types we know we deliver most value to, and we’re improving functionality where it truly matters. For us, it’s also crucial to support this development with competence, experience, and above all strong personal relationships with our customers and partners.
We see how agents – digital assistants capable of making decisions, executing tasks, and interacting with systems – will take over many of the manual processes we handle today. And not just the simple ones, but also those that require analysis, strategy, and nuance. This means our customers will be able to manage larger business volumes with fewer resources, freeing up time for growth, innovation, or simply achieving a better balance.
A key part of our journey is becoming ”agent-friendly”, making Norce easy to understand and use for AI agents. Agents are something in-between humans and computers. For humans, we have graphical interfaces; for machines, we have APIs. Agents need a bit more guidance to act effectively, and we’ll make sure they get it. The fact that Norce already offers comprehensive APIs and solid documentation is a major advantage in supporting agents, whether it’s for pricing, product data creation, or purchasing.
We call this Agent Experience, a new way of thinking about communication, from the agent’s perspective. Our customers and partners will want to develop their own agents as part of their commerce solutions, and end-users will increasingly rely on agents to find, compare, and buy products. We’re already seeing major players like OpenAI and Google roll out functionality for agent-driven commerce. This is the start of a paradigm shift, and Norce will be part of it.
Another important area is AI as an enhancement of Norce’s core functionality, helping our customers and partners work more efficiently and make better decisions. This could mean AI-generated product descriptions, structuring unstructured data, bulk content updates, and AI-powered insights in areas like pricing, assortment, inventory, and campaigns. Whether through extensions of current interface or perhaps in the form of an agent marketplace, where both Norce-built and third-party agents are available.
There’s also significant potential in using AI to improve our customer support. We’ve already implemented AI in both user and technical support, and the response has been very positive. This allows us to maintain high-quality service while working more efficiently, freeing up resources for proactive initiatives like training and documentation.
Last but not least, AI as an accelerator of development. It’s clear that AI can improve quality and increase productivity in software development. What’s truly game- changing is that success is no longer about team size, it’s about how smart you work.
When we free up people from repetitive or uninspiring tasks, we make room for meaningful work. For creativity. For business development. And for relationships.
My ambition is for Norce to be the platform that enables exactly that. A place where our customers, their customers, and our partners can thrive in the AI-driven commerce landscape. And for me personally, this might just be the most exciting chapter of my entire ecommerce journey so far.