SAP at NRF 2024: What Was Announced and What It Means for Commerce

NRF 2024 was where SAP put its AI-first commerce strategy on the table. CX AI Toolkit, Intelligent Selling Services upgrades, deeper Emarsys integration. The message was clear: AI isn’t something you bolt onto commerce. It’s the operating layer.

Two years on, most of what SAP previewed has shipped. So let me walk through what was announced, what’s actually in production now, and what it means if you’re running Commerce Cloud.

TL;DR: At NRF 2024, SAP showcased the CX AI Toolkit (generative AI for product content), enhanced Intelligent Selling Services (AI personalisation), and deeper Emarsys integration (AI-driven marketing automation). SAP now has over 34,000 AI customers, targeting 100,000 by 2027 (SAP News, 2024). Most NRF 2024 announcements have shipped and are now production-ready.

What Was the CX AI Toolkit?

SAP has over 34,000 AI customers across its portfolio, with plans to reach 100,000 by 2027 (SAP News, 2024). The CX AI Toolkit announced at NRF 2024 was a big piece of that growth story.

What the toolkit actually does: it brings generative AI straight into Commerce Cloud’s product management workflow. Not as a separate tool you alt-tab into. Right there where merchandisers already work.

AI product tagging automatically categorises and labels products based on images and descriptions. Instead of manual tagging across thousands of SKUs, the AI suggests categories, attributes, and tags. Merchandisers review and approve rather than build from scratch. I talked to a client running 40,000 SKUs who was spending two full-time people on product tagging alone. That’s the kind of problem this solves.

AI product descriptions generate customer-facing copy from structured data. Feed it product attributes (material, dimensions, features) and it produces descriptions in multiple tones: technical, casual, luxury. For large catalogues, this cuts description creation from hours to minutes. Neat win for any merchandising team.

Bulk editing applies AI-generated content across hundreds or thousands of products at once. Descriptions, tags, categories, all in batch operations.

Under the hood, the toolkit runs on SAP’s Business AI foundation, connecting to large language models (partnerships with OpenAI, Google, and Meta) through SAP AI Core. The practical upside: it’s model-agnostic. SAP can swap underlying models as better ones emerge without breaking your implementation.

What Changed with Intelligent Selling Services?

Global retail e-commerce reached $6.334 trillion in 2024, crossing 20% of all retail sales (eMarketer, 2024). The ISS improvements at NRF 2024 targeted converting more of that traffic.

SAP demonstrated enhanced Intelligent Selling Services capabilities:

Improved recommendation algorithms with better cold-start handling (new customers with no browsing history), improved cross-category recommendations, and faster model training cycles. Cold-start was always the dodgy bit with ISS. Good to see it addressed.

Real-time personalisation with reduced latency between customer actions and personalised responses. When a customer adds a product to their cart, cross-sell recommendations update within the same session, not the next visit. That’s the kind of responsiveness shoppers now expect.

Merchandiser controls give the people running the store better tools to influence AI recommendations without overriding them entirely. Set guardrails (minimum margin, brand priorities) and let AI optimise within those boundaries. Smart approach.

How Did Emarsys Fit into the NRF 2024 Story?

Ninety-one per cent of organisations increased composable/MACH infrastructure investment in the past year (MACH Alliance, 2025). Emarsys at NRF 2024 showed how AI-driven marketing automation fits into a composable commerce stack.

SAP positioned Emarsys as the marketing automation layer that takes ISS personalisation signals and extends them into customer communications:

AI-powered campaign automation uses customer behaviour data (including ISS signals) to trigger personalised email, SMS, and push notification campaigns. Abandoned cart emails include the specific products the customer was looking at, with AI-selected alternatives. Solid stuff that actually converts.

Predictive customer segmentation identifies segments automatically based on purchase patterns, browsing behaviour, and lifecycle stage. Who’s at risk of churning? Who’s ready for an upsell? The AI flags these proactively instead of waiting for a marketer to build the query.

Cross-channel orchestration was a big NRF 2024 focus: Emarsys running customer communications across email, SMS, push, web personalisation, and social, all driven by the same behaviour model that powers ISS. One brain, many channels.

What Does This Mean for Commerce Cloud Implementations?

Gartner named SAP a Leader in Digital Commerce for 11 consecutive years (SAP News, 2025). The NRF 2024 announcements reinforced why. SAP is investing heavily in AI-native commerce.

For new implementations: plan for ISS and the CX AI Toolkit from the start. Don’t treat them as phase-2 nice-to-haves. The data collection and model training need time, so the earlier you start, the better the results. We tell every client this now.

For existing implementations: the CX AI Toolkit can immediately cut manual effort in product content management. ISS improvements ship through Commerce Cloud updates, so check whether your current personalisation setup is actually using the latest capabilities. I reckon half the Commerce Cloud installations we audit aren’t.

For the broader SAP CX strategy: NRF 2024 made it clear that AI runs through the entire customer experience stack. Product discovery (ISS), content creation (CX AI Toolkit), marketing (Emarsys). These tools share data and amplify each other. They’re not separate silos. That’s the de facto direction now.

FAQ

Is the CX AI Toolkit available now?

Yes. It reached general availability in 2024. Available to Commerce Cloud customers as part of the platform. Specific features depend on your Commerce Cloud edition.

Does using ISS require additional licensing?

ISS is included with SAP Commerce Cloud. Features vary depending on your edition and contract. Check with SAP or your implementation partner for exact availability.

Can I use the CX AI Toolkit with my existing product catalogue?

Yes. It works with your existing Commerce Cloud catalogue. Reads product attributes and generates descriptions, tags, and categorisations from that data. No catalogue migration or restructuring needed.

How does SAP’s AI approach compare to competitors?

SAP’s approach is embedded: AI capabilities are built into the commerce workflow, not offered as separate add-on tools. Shopify and Salesforce take similar approaches. Where SAP stands apart is integration across the full enterprise stack (ERP, CRM, supply chain), not just commerce.

What happened at NRF 2025?

NRF 2025 (January 2025) continued the AI theme with deeper Joule integration across SAP CX, expanded CX AI Toolkit capabilities, and agentic AI demonstrations for autonomous commerce operations. The direction set at NRF 2024 has accelerated, not pivoted.