New B2B Buyer Generations Require New Selling Capabilities
A recent report by Forrester shows that over 70% of B2B Buyers today are now Millennials & Gen Z (digital natives). This means that the 'good old boys' club of B2B insiders no longer hold the power they once did. The B2B buyer is now younger and more diverse than ever before and B2B sellers would do well to heed this trend, lest they become irrelevant to the digital first buyer of today.
From self-service eCommerce, to eProcurement, EDI, Agentic Commerce & B2B specific marketplaces - the sheer volume of channels a modern B2B supplier needs to support can be overwhelming. This is especially true for B2B suppliers that still rely on field sales, inside sales teams and customer service to take and manage the bulk of their orders.
B2B Selling, Multi-Modal AI & Agentic Commerce
Multi-modal AI and Agentic Commerce are already changing the way B2B sellers are implementing Sales Force Automation. The main area where Sales Force Automation is getting a TON of attention in B2B today is the automation of legacy B2B sales, service, support & communication channels like Email, WhatsApp, Slack and MS Teams.
Platforms like Motivate are starting to bridge the gap here, but several other B2B eCommerce platforms are starting to deliver this as platform-native functionality too (e.g., OroCommerce AI Smart Order & BetterCommerce B2B Connect.)
While these technologies are currently focused on automating legacy Order Management processes and mapping orders into the commerce system automatically, these channels are essentially being turned into headless commerce channels more broadly, where customers can use them to request quotes, search the catalog, check prices, inventory, tracking numbers, estimated delivery dates and more. This can take the form of prescriptive options in the channel (eg drop down options in WhatsApp message threads) or a ‘conversational AI’ approach.
While many customers will transact via self-service eCommerce, EDI and/or eProcurement/Punchout, delivering the full suite of digital services via these traditional sales, service and communication channels offers huge value for both the buyer and the seller.
'eProcurement' & 'Punchout' Evolve Towards Agentic Procurement & Agentic Commerce
The 'Big 3' players in eProcurement technology are also already investing heavily in Agentic Procurement capabilities:
- JAGGAER
Recent announcements:
JAGGAER, April 2025:
- How Intake and Orchestration AI Are Reshaping Procurement
- If you’ve been paying attention to technology developments in procurement, you’ve probably come across the term “Intake & Orchestration.” So, what’s it all about? And why should you take note?
- Intake AI refers to the use of artificial intelligence to capture, understand, and classify incoming requests or needs, whether from users, systems, or documents. These could be service requests, inquiries, demand planning, or purchase needs. AI helps streamline and automate the process by which these requests are interpreted and directed to the right place to guarantee governance and compliance based on company policies.
- Orchestration AI then takes over to coordinate the execution of those requests across multiple systems, teams, or processes. It ensures the right actions happen in the right sequence—often by integrating with a range of tools and workflows, not only in terms of approval processes but more importantly in terms of collaborations with internal and external actors, triggering actions in other systems.
- Together, they form an intelligent front door for business operations: understanding what someone wants, and making sure it happens efficiently, often without human intervention. In this way the technology ensures the correct execution and accelerates time to value, creating a flexible and adaptable procurement ecosystem.
Coupa Software, May 2025:
Coupa unveils ground breaking Navi multiagent AI suite to transform business resilience with agentic offerings
- Coupa, a leader in AI-native total spend management, launches its innovative multiagent AI solutions aimed at modernising procurement processes. As businesses navigate complex global markets, enhancing decision-making and productivity becomes paramount.
- Coupa's new AI capabilities promise to streamline procurement operations, providing invaluable insights and processes that allow procurement teams to focus more on strategic initiatives.
- Salvatore Lombardo, Chief Product and Technology Officer at Coupa, says: "Coupa is transforming global trade by using multiagent AI capabilities to dynamically and autonomously match the needs of buyers and suppliers.
SAP Ariba, April 2025:
- When we said 2024 was only the beginning, we meant it. This year will be the most ambitious year for SAP Business AI yet, with a target of 400 embedded AI use cases across our cloud portfolio.
- SAP Business AI for procurement and supply chain are flush with new AI enhancements. Joule joins SAP Ariba and SAP Field Service Management for natural language navigation and task completion. SAP Ariba Category Management offers AI-assisted category recommendations to help streamline strategic planning. SAP Green Token introduces AI-powered declaration image analysis for automatic data extraction from supplier declarations.
This is mostly taking the form of internal automations across Intake and Orchestration today but it won't be long until they create seller facing agentic procurement capabilities. MOST B2B suppliers and in fact MOST B2B eCommerce platforms are not ready for this eventuality in any meaningful way.
At a bare minimum, B2B suppliers MUST make Punchout (digital) catalogs available to these eProcurement platforms via specialist middleware like TradeCentric & Greenwing.
What B2B Suppliers Must Do to Survive & Thrive in the Era of Agentic Commerce
These market and technical revolutions present a unique opportunity for B2B's to leverage their commerce technology investments in new ways, driving significantly higher ROI as a result. Meeting your customers (human OR AI Agent) where they are has never been more important to staying relevant as a B2B supplier.
It's a brave new world in B2B eCommerce but suppliers would do well to get their digital house in order ASAP to capitalize on this demand!
