How the right data, AI agents, and people empower brands to deliver seamless, personalized experiences across every channel

An Omnichannel Strategy Is Table Stakes

For years, “omnichannel” was retail’s favorite buzzword—an aspirational idea that most brands endorsed in principle but struggled to execute. That gap between intent and execution has not closed. According to recent industry research, only about one in four businesses has the technology infrastructure to deliver consistent, personalized experiences across channels.

What has changed is the urgency. The omnichannel retail solutions market is valued at over $10 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach $25 billion by 2032. Companies with strong omnichannel strategies retain 89% of their customers, compared to just 33% for those without. And omnichannel shoppers spend 1.7 times more than single-channel buyers.

The difference in 2026 is that brands finally have the tools to close the execution gap. AI agents—systems that can autonomously handle customer inquiries, manage conversations across channels, and personalize interactions at scale—are moving from pilot programs to operational infrastructure. Seventy-six percent of retailers say they’re increasing their investment in AI agents over the next year, with customer service as the top use case.

This guide explores why omnichannel must remain a top priority for every brand—and how AI, data, and people work together to deliver seamless, cross-channel experiences that attract, convert, and retain customers.

The State of Shopping in 2026

Ecommerce Continues Steady Growth

The pandemic-era ecommerce explosion has settled into a sustained growth pattern. As of Q3 2025, ecommerce accounted for 16.4% of total U.S. retail sales, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, with sales growing 5.1% year-over-year. Globally, ecommerce sales are forecast to reach $6.88 trillion in 2026, making up roughly 21% of all retail.

Global ecommerce sales are expected to reach $6.88 trillion in 2026, representing 21.1% of total retail sales.
Source: Shopify / Statista

Mobile commerce continues to accelerate as a share of online sales. Revenue from mobile ecommerce reached $2.51 trillion worldwide in 2025, now accounting for 59% of all ecommerce transactions. In many emerging markets, mobile is the primary—and often only—digital shopping channel.

Mobile commerce now accounts for 59% of global ecommerce sales.
Source: Statista

The Store Is Evolving, Not Disappearing

Physical stores remain important, but their role in the purchase journey continues to shift. According to Salesforce’s Connected Shoppers Report, the in-store share of purchases is declining from 45% in 2024 to a projected 41% by 2026. Meanwhile, 72 million Americans used curbside pickup in the past year, and click-and-collect sales are projected to reach $154 billion in 2025.

Stores are increasingly becoming fulfillment hubs, showrooms, and experience centers. Among the top 1,000 U.S. retailers, those offering curbside pickup saw conversion rates increase by nearly 26%. The store is no longer just about inventory—it’s about creating value that online channels can’t replicate.

New Channels Are Reshaping How People Buy

The number of ways consumers can discover and purchase products has expanded dramatically. Social commerce alone is expected to exceed $90 billion in the U.S. in 2025 and surpass $100 billion by 2026. Globally, social commerce was valued at over $1.2 trillion in 2024. Over half of Gen Z and Millennial consumers have made a purchase directly through a social media platform.

U.S. social commerce sales are expected to surpass $100 billion by 2026.
Source: eMarketer

Conversational commerce is growing in parallel. Consumers now interact with brands, get recommendations, and make purchases within messaging apps, live chat, and increasingly through AI-powered agents. Nearly 60% of TikTok users say they’ve used the platform for shopping inspiration, and 43% of Gen Z start product searches on TikTok rather than traditional search engines.

Meanwhile, augmented and virtual reality tools are moving from novelty to utility—helping shoppers visualize products before purchase and reducing costly return cycles.

The Purchase Journey Is More Fragmented Than Ever

The average shopper now uses six touchpoints during a purchase journey. Nearly three-quarters of consumers engage across multiple channels as part of their regular buying behavior. A shopper might discover a product on Instagram, read reviews on the brand’s site, visit a store to see the product firsthand, ask a question through a messaging app, and ultimately purchase on their phone.

Shoppers use an average of 6 touchpoints during their purchase journey, and 73% regularly shop across multiple channels.
Source: Capital One Shopping Research

This fragmentation means brands need to be present, responsive, and consistent across every channel—not just the ones they prefer.

Consumer Expectations Haven’t Slowed Down

Consumers continue to raise the bar. Eighty-three percent of consumers say personalized experiences increase their brand loyalty, and those who receive personalization spend an average of 46% more. On the flip side, 71% of consumers have switched brands in the past year—often because of poor or disconnected experiences.

The message is clear: meeting customers where they are, with the experiences they expect, is no longer optional. It’s the baseline.

The AI-Powered Omnichannel Opportunity

Omnichannel campaigns using three or more channels see 494% higher order rates compared to single-channel efforts. Omnichannel retailers achieve 179% faster revenue growth than single-channel competitors. These aren’t theoretical numbers—they’re the measured outcome of meeting customers where they are.

In 2026, the opportunity isn’t just about being present on more channels. It’s about being intelligent across those channels. Brands that deliver relevant, connected, personalized omnichannel experiences—powered by AI—are better positioned to:

• Attract and delight customers across their preferred channels
• Increase conversion rates and average order value
• Build loyalty and grow lifetime value
• Reduce service costs while improving satisfaction
• Free up human teams for higher-value work

Three Keys to Accelerating Your Omnichannel Strategy

A successful omnichannel strategy still comes down to three components: data, technology, and people. What’s changed is how AI transforms each one.

#1: Unified, Actionable Data

One-size-fits-all experiences don’t work. Consumers expect personalized interactions across every channel, and data is the foundation that makes those experiences possible.

The Data Challenge Is Real

Most brands have more data than ever before. But it’s scattered across CRM systems, ecommerce platforms, point-of-sale systems, social channels, and customer service tools. When data is siloed, even the most sophisticated AI can’t deliver a coherent experience. You end up with a customer who gets a promotional email for an item they returned last week, or a support agent who has no idea the customer just placed an order five minutes ago.

First-Party Data Is Your Competitive Advantage

With third-party cookies now effectively phased out across major browsers, first-party data has become the most valuable asset in a brand’s toolkit. The good news is that consumers are willing to share their information when they see the value. Research shows that over 80% of consumers will share their data with a brand to receive personalized products, recommendations, discounts, or services.

The key is transparency and timing. After a positive interaction—like a helpful conversation with an AI agent or a smooth returns experience—customers are more likely to provide their data to fuel better future experiences.

Centralize Your Customer Data

You need a single source of truth about your customers—a unified profile that every system, team, and AI agent can draw from. Salesforce provides the foundation for this, allowing brands to capture, unify, and activate customer data in a single location. That data then powers everything from product discovery and purchase to service and loyalty.

When AI agents can access a complete customer profile—purchase history, preferences, past interactions, browsing behavior—they can deliver the kind of personalized, context-aware experiences that build trust and drive revenue. Without unified data, AI is just a faster way to deliver generic responses.

#2: An AI-Optimized Tech Stack

Having the right technology is the difference between brands that talk about omnichannel and those that actually deliver it. In 2026, the most important shift in any retail tech stack is the addition of AI agents.

AI Agents: From Experiment to Infrastructure

The AI customer service market is projected to reach $15 billion in 2026. Eighty percent of companies are now either using or planning to adopt AI-powered agents for customer service. And the results speak for themselves: 80% of routine customer interactions—ticket categorization, order tracking, common inquiries, basic troubleshooting—are expected to be fully handled by AI in 2026.

80% of routine customer interactions will be fully handled by AI in 2026, including order tracking, common inquiries, and basic troubleshooting.
Source: CoSupport AI / Gartner

This isn’t about replacing human agents. It’s about letting AI handle the volume of repetitive inquiries—across every channel, in every language, 24 hours a day—so your human team can focus on the complex, high-value interactions that build deeper customer relationships.

Modern AI agents can handle conversations across live chat, email, messaging apps, social media, and SMS without losing context. They can process returns, answer product questions, recommend items based on purchase history, and route complex issues to the right human agent with full context attached. Seventy-nine percent of support agents say having an AI copilot improves their ability to deliver better customer service.

What AI Agents Actually Do for Omnichannel Brands

Here’s what this looks like in practice:

• Respond to customer inquiries across 10+ channels simultaneously, with consistent tone and complete context
• Translate conversations in real time so customers can interact in their preferred language
• Surface relevant product information, reviews, and Q&A answers during live conversations
• Process orders, returns, and exchanges without a human agent touching the case
• Analyze customer sentiment across reviews, messages, and social posts to flag issues before they escalate
• Learn from every interaction to improve response quality over time

The ROI is measurable. For every $1 invested in AI, businesses see an average return of $3.50, with top performers seeing up to 8x returns. Companies using AI agents report a 25% reduction in customer service costs and a 52% reduction in complex case handling time.

Streamline Before You Add

Before layering on new tools, take a hard look at your existing stack. Many brands run dozens of overlapping solutions that create data silos and operational friction. The goal is a tech stack that works in unison—with Salesforce as the foundation and AI-native solutions extending its capabilities.

Look for gaps in functionality, especially around translation, review management, conversational commerce, and order management. And ensure any solutions you add integrate natively with your core platform. Fragmented tools lead to fragmented experiences.

Salesforce as the Foundation

The world’s leading brands choose Salesforce as their single source of truth. Salesforce allows brands to create unified customer profiles across all touchpoints—with customer data, marketing journeys, and privacy management in one place. Teams across the organization can then leverage this data to segment customers, deploy AI agents, and deliver winning experiences throughout the customer journey.

1440: AI-Native Solutions for Omnichannel Excellence

Salesforce is powerful out of the box. But the real advantage comes from extending it with solutions purpose-built for the complexities of omnichannel retail.

At 1440, we’ve built a suite of AI-native solutions on Salesforce that empower brands to deliver great experiences before, during, and after every sale. The customer journey is rarely straightforward—but our tools ensure you’re ready to meet customers wherever they are.

Pre-Purchase: Building Confidence at Scale

Modern consumers research extensively before committing to a purchase. In a climate of rising prices and tighter budgets, shoppers are scrutinizing every purchase more carefully than ever.

Building Your Reputation with UGC

User-generated content—ratings, reviews, and Q&A—remains the most influential factor in purchase decisions. Ninety-four percent of online shoppers regularly read reviews, and 65% read reviews on their phone while shopping in a physical store. Meanwhile, 98% of consumers read Q&A content at least sometimes, and over half submit their own questions.

94% of online shoppers regularly read reviews, and 98% of consumers read Q&A at least sometimes.
Source: PowerReviews / 1440

Reputation Studio from 1440 allows brands to manage reviews and Q&A from dozens of channels—all within Salesforce. AI helps prioritize which reviews need responses, suggests reply language, and ensures you’re getting shoppers timely answers to their purchase-blocking questions. The result: higher conversion and a stronger reputation.

Connecting Through Preferred Channels

Consumers increasingly turn to messaging channels to interact with brands throughout the purchase journey. Messaging Studio from 1440 empowers your team—and your AI agents—to manage these conversations within Salesforce, maintaining context across channels and delivering fast, personalized responses.

Breaking Down Language Barriers

Translation Studio from 1440 ensures you can engage with consumers in their preferred language—whether they’re writing a review, asking a question, or reaching out through a messaging app. Eighty-three percent of consumers expect brands to communicate with them in their preferred language. AI-powered translation makes this possible at scale, without requiring multilingual staff for every interaction.

During Purchase: Seamless Ordering Across Channels

After doing their research, reading reviews and Q&A, and getting answers to their questions, your customer is ready to buy. The challenge is delivering a smooth purchasing experience—regardless of channel, device, or payment method.

Commerce Studio from 1440 ensures shoppers have frictionless ordering experiences across every channel. It handles payment processing, order management, and fulfillment coordination so that customers receive exactly what they ordered, without issues. When something does go wrong, AI agents can step in immediately to resolve the problem—before it turns into a negative review.

Post-Purchase: Resolving Issues and Building Loyalty

Acquiring a new customer costs five to 25 times more than retaining an existing one. That’s why post-sale experiences—handled well—are among the highest-ROI activities a brand can invest in. AI agents make it possible to deliver excellent post-sale support at scale.

Turning Negative Experiences Around

When a customer writes a negative review, speed matters. Reputation Studio from 1440 alerts your team immediately. AI agents can draft an initial response, which your team can review and personalize before posting. Translation Studio ensures the response goes out in the customer’s preferred language.

Seventy-three percent of consumers would reconsider a product with a negative review if there was a sufficient response from the brand. That’s a second chance that most brands are leaving on the table.

73% of consumers would reconsider a product with a negative review if the brand responds effectively.
Source: 1440

Streamlining Returns

At least 30% of products ordered online are returned. The returns experience can make or break a customer relationship: 92% of shoppers will buy from a brand again if the returns process is easy.

Commerce Studio allows brands to provide a self-service returns portal. AI agents can walk customers through the process, process returns and exchanges, and handle damage claims—across multiple channels, all within Salesforce. Human agents step in only for edge cases that require judgment.

Strengthening Relationships with Happy Customers

Post-purchase engagement isn’t just about fixing problems. Reputation Studio enables brands to respond to positive reviews across channels, and Translation Studio lets you do so in the reviewer’s language. AI agents can also proactively follow up with satisfied customers—requesting reviews, sharing complementary product recommendations, or surfacing loyalty rewards.

Using Data to Continuously Improve

Reviews and Q&A are a rich source of product and experience intelligence. Reputation Studio allows you to measure sentiment across your products and brand continuously. AI can surface patterns—common complaints, feature requests, emerging quality issues—that help you improve existing products, develop new ones, and make your omnichannel experiences better over time.

#3: An Empowered Team

Great omnichannel customer experiences start with great employee experiences. If your team is overwhelmed, undertrained, or working with disconnected tools, they’re not going to deliver winning experiences—no matter how good your strategy looks on paper.

In 2026, this has a new dimension. Over half of service agents report experiencing burnout, and 69% of customer service leaders say agent attrition is a major challenge. AI agents can directly address this by absorbing the high-volume, repetitive work that drives burnout—freeing human agents to focus on complex issues that require empathy, creativity, and judgment.

But AI doesn’t just reduce workload—it makes human agents better. Seventy-nine percent of agents say an AI copilot improves their service quality. When AI handles the routine and provides context for the complex, human agents can build the deeper customer relationships that drive loyalty.

Invest in finding the right people—both hard and soft skills. Provide ongoing training, especially as AI tools evolve. Equip your teams with integrated platforms like Salesforce, Reputation Studio, Translation Studio, and Messaging Studio so they can collaborate effectively across teams, languages, and channels. And give them the autonomy to focus on the work that matters most.

For Brands, Agility Is Essential

Building an omnichannel strategy isn’t a one-time project. Consumer habits, channel preferences, and AI capabilities are evolving constantly. According to Deloitte’s 2026 Outlook, 68% of retail executives plan to deploy agentic AI within the next 12 to 24 months—signaling that the competitive landscape will look very different by 2027.

The brands that win won’t be the ones that build the perfect omnichannel strategy today. They’ll be the ones that invest in flexible technology, maintain unified data foundations, and continuously adapt as customer expectations and AI capabilities evolve.

It’s Time to Activate Your AI-Powered Omnichannel Strategy

The customer journey in 2026 is fragmented, fast-moving, and happening across more channels than ever before. Consumers expect connected, personalized experiences—and they’ll leave for a competitor who delivers them.

Most brands know this. Fewer are executing on it.

AI agents are the force multiplier that makes true omnichannel execution possible. They handle the volume. They maintain the context. They work across every channel, in every language, around the clock. And they free your human team to do what they do best: build the deep, trust-based relationships that turn customers into advocates.

Now’s the time to close the gap between omnichannel ambition and omnichannel reality. With the right data, the right technology, and the right people—empowered by AI—you’ll set yourself apart from the competition and be in the ideal position to attract, convert, and retain more customers across every channel.

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