Williams-Sonoma deploys AI agents to enhance customer service
A leading home products and furnishings retailer is scaling demand for 24/7 personalized customer service with next-gen artificial intelligence.
Williams-Sonoma is leveraging the Salesforce Agentforce 360 Platform to build and deploy agentic AI bots intended to bolster customer service and enhance shopper experiences. Each brand in the Williams-Sonoma, Inc. portfolio — which includes Williams Sonoma, Williams Sonoma Home, West Elm, Pottery Barn, Pottery Barn Kids, Pottery Barn Teen, Rejuvenation, Mark & Graham, and GreenRow — will seamlessly integrate AI agents with human experts across their websites.
[READ MORE: How agentic AI is finding its place in retail]
In addition, Williams-Sonoma is using the Salesforce Data 360 data engine to unify and harmonize data across its banners and customer touchpoints. As a result, the retailer hopes to give AI agents complete, real-time customer and product information to support the delivery of accurate, personalized responses without human intervention.
Williams-Sonoma anticipates that the company will be able to autonomously resolve more than 60% of chat inquiries with this capability. In addition to the customer service agent, Williams-Sonoma is building a sous chef agent on Agentforce 360 that will help customers plan menus, discover products, and execute recipes when shopping its website.
Customers will be able to interact with the sous chef agent, nicknamed Olive, which will be able to reason over data, infer intent, and deliver a customized plan for experiences such as hosting and cooking Thanksgiving dinner, creating a detailed menu with recipes while generating a shopping list, and recommending kitchen tools and Williams Sonoma food products and table décor, including suggestions based on past purchases customers already own.
"We’re focused on advancing the exceptional customer service our brands are known for," said Laura Alber, president and CEO, Williams-Sonoma Inc. "Agentforce 360 gives our teams the tools to better understand and respond to each customer’s needs quickly and effectively — helping us deliver personalized experiences at scale."
In addition to Agentforce 360 Platform and Data 360, Williams-Sonoma also uses Agentforce marketing, service and sales solutions to run campaigns, manage and organize customer data, streamline tracking and reporting, and help make business decisions based on the latest information from its brands.
The company also intends to use AI agents across service, marketing and design to assist customers with product discovery and lifestyle design.
"Williams-Sonoma Inc. has always set the standard for amazing customer experiences," said Marc Benioff, chair and CEO of Salesforce. "Now, they’re showing the world what’s possible when humans and AI agents work together. With Salesforce, Williams-Sonoma Inc. is pioneering a new era of customer engagement — one that is intelligent, scalable, and deeply personalized. This is the future of business: agentic AI elevating people to deliver trusted, meaningful experiences at unmatched speed and scale."
Based in San Francisco, Williams-Sonoma Inc. operates in the U.S., Puerto Rico, Canada, Australia and the U.K. and has unaffiliated franchisees that operate stores in the Middle East, Philippines, Mexico, South Korea and India.
