For years, ecommerce search bars trained shoppers to search for what they’re looking for with as few keywords as possible. People stripped away full sentences and relied on keyword-heavy fragments like “women black running shoes size 8” just to get a decent list of results. On the back end, merchandising teams spent countless hours writing stop-word lists, synonym rules, and manual redirects to clean up edge cases.
That approach no longer works. Already, 41% of B2C organizations report that customers use natural language search directly on their own sites. Shoppers expect your storefront to understand full, natural sentences immediately — and return relevant results.
The July 2026 B2C Commerce release (v26.7) delivers the tools your business needs to meet this moment. From intent-aware search and ChatGPT product integrations to centralized security tools for platform admins, this release bridges the gap between how shoppers search and how teams manage their stores.
What’s new in B2C Commerce
We designed the July 2026 release to supercharge both your business operations and your core storefront technology. Here’s a breakdown of what’s changing, tailored for merchandisers, admins, and developers.
For merchandisers: Turn intent into revenue and expand channel reach
1. Go beyond keywords with Agentic Commerce Search
Instead of matching basic keyword strings, Agentic Commerce Search uses an AI-native engine trained on catalog data, real shopper behavior, and simulated queries to decode true shopper intent. Tightly integrated into B2C Commerce, it optimizes every touchpoint across the buying journey.
- Search: Decodes natural phrasing, long-tail queries, and typos without manual synonym lists.
- Browse: Dynamically ranks category pages using real-time shopper behavior and your core business targets.
- Recommendations: Shows contextual, intent-matched items across product detail and cart pages.
- Merchandising Rules: Provides additional real-time controls so you can curate results, boost strategic inventory, or bury out-of-stock items.
- Shopper Agent: Natively integrates Agentic Commerce search into Agentforce Shopper Agent, so your agent understands how shoppers actually talk. It also comes with a new react-based interface that embeds anywhere on your storefront, matching your brand style. It’s context-aware and responds to the page your shoppers are on and what filters they’ve applied.
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2. Curate your product listings in ChatGPT via the Catalog Feed Integration with OpenAI
Shoppers are actively asking ChatGPT for product recommendations and personalized gift guides. With our native OpenAI integration, you can map your B2C Commerce fields to OpenAI’s catalog standards, filter eligible products, and set up automated daily syncs. Keep titles, pricing, images, and inventory accurate in ChatGPT without writing custom code.
3. Streamline merchandising and storefront content
Our goal is to increase merchandiser productivity and make daily tasks easier. Here are some other key highlights for merchandisers:
- Site-wide Content Blocks (beta for Storefront Next): Create header banners or sitewide promotional messages once and publish them across your site. Preview updates in Page Designer without switching screens.
- Visual merchandising enhancements: Perform category slicing and manage product variations directly from individual product cards in your visual workflow.
- Upgraded A/B testing and campaigns: Set rank, precedence, and priority directly in the promotional interface. All campaign dates now reflect your local time zone to eliminate scheduling errors.
- Instant person accounts: B2C Commerce now creates connected Salesforce Person Accounts in real time when shoppers sign up via SCAPI, PWA Kit, or Storefront Next.
For admins: Centralize observability and harden storefront security
1. Centralized, multi-channel log alert management
Track operational activity across all Log Center sources from one central view. Build state-aware alerts — triggered only when issues are new, ongoing, or resolved — and route notifications straight to Slack or PagerDuty to cut down on unnecessary noise.
2. Embedded eCDN log management and PCI monitoring
- Logpush and Logpull: Stream HTTP requests, firewall events, and Page Shield logs directly to Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, Azure Blob, Datadog, or Splunk (up to two active streaming jobs per zone). Alternatively, download seven days of request logs on demand using Logpull.
- PCI compliance dashboard: Monitor zone security and receive automated PCI compliance alerts inside Business Manager under the new eCDN Notifications tab. PCI alerts flag zone-configuration changes that may affect PCI DSS posture (e.g., cipher-suite regressions, WAF-rule state). They do not replace your ASV scan or PCI attestation.
3. Enhanced security and granular replication controls
- Hardened file uploads: Require Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) whenever users upload or import JavaScript or HTML files containing scripts. Browser execution for WebDAV and Folder Browser files is now disabled to safeguard your sandbox and staging environments.
- Commerce App deployment replication: Replicate Commerce App Packages (CAP) from staging to production using the new SITE_COMMERCE_FEATURE_STATE replication group.
- Granular replication and shopper registration events (Pilot): New event types regarding granular replication and shopper registration are here. Granular replication events notify you when specific objects (product IDs, price tables, content assets, promotions, catalogs) complete replication, enabling precise cache invalidation without waiting for full replication cycles. Shopper registration events fire when customers create accounts on your storefronts, allowing you to trigger onboarding workflows and welcome campaigns in real-time.
For developers: Visual Studio Code extension
1. Developer superpowers for Visual Studio Code
Developers who work daily in Visual Studio Code can now install the new Salesforce B2C Commerce for VS Code extension to unlock direct access to B2C capabilities in their IDE, without having to context switch into other systems such as Business Manager. Stay in the flow with:
- Editor support for ISML, Script API, XSD validation and project scaffolding
- Debugging of server-side scripts
- Sandbox management to quickly start, stop, create and clone sandbox instances
- Deploy and manage code versions quickly
- Browse WebDav and content libraries
- Explore, learn and try SCAPI endpoints
Key benefits of the July 2026 B2C Commerce release
Meet shoppers where (and how) they search
Agentic Commerce Search and our native OpenAI feed distribution adapt to how modern shoppers browse. By delivering context-aware results on your storefront and maintaining accurate catalog data inside ChatGPT, you capture demand wherever shoppers express it.
Cut hours of operational overhead
Stop managing thousands of manual search rules, stop copying promotional banners across dozens of page templates, and stop building custom scripts to push products to external AI channels. Built-in automation gives your team time back to focus on strategic growth.
Diagnose issues faster with enterprise guardrails
Unified alerts in Slack and PagerDuty mean your tech team fixes potential bottlenecks before they impact buyers. Paired with MFA enforcement and direct eCDN log streaming, your infrastructure remains compliant, performant, and secure.
Elevate your commerce experience
The future of digital retail is conversational, intent-driven, and highly automated. Explore these new capabilities to see how your brand can drive higher conversion rates and lower operational overhead.