How AI is changing promotions management: Introducing commercetools Promotions Agent

A smarter way to manage promotions at scale

Setting up promotions and discounts helps retailers stand out and attract price-sensitive shoppers, but building and reconfiguring back-to-back promotions in your commerce platform can take days, if not weeks, of manual work. 

Take a promotion like “30% off winter jackets over $100”. It looks simple, but implementing it behind the scenes means that a merchandiser has to select all relevant products, set the minimum price, create cart rules or codes and set start and end dates. The work is far from over: Tracking results, monitoring customer feedback and adapting whatever is needed are also part of every successful campaign. 

Now multiply that by campaigns that change daily and multiple campaigns running at once. Add in localized content, and the scope multiplies again. Commerce managers, marketers and merchandisers may spend hours each day configuring campaigns, hoping there are no errors. 

What if the time they spent setting up campaigns could be optimized, so they could focus on strategic and creative ways to maximize results? 

Purpose-built AI agents like commercetools Promotions Agent ease this workload by creating draft promotions from plain-text instructions, ready for human approval, enabling a faster and more cost-effective campaign set-up. 

Why promotions management is ripe for an overhaul

Pricing and promotions are a high-stakes part of any retail operation. Here’s what’s at risk when companies have inefficient or ineffective promotions workflows:

1. Pricing errors: Human error is inevitable with manual, tedious processes. Pricing errors erode customer trust and lead to revenue loss from underpriced or overpriced items. 

2. High operational lift: During seasonal cycles, eCommerce managers and marketing teams spend hours per day building and managing promotions. A Coresight Research survey found that pricing and promotion execution is the biggest challenge for retailers, cited by 92% of companies. A slow process equals more time and higher operational costs. 

3. Customer conversion: Pricing value is the top decision factor for shoppers in 2026. Faster, better promotion workflows allow teams to test and optimize promotions to find what converts best. A BCG analysis estimates that agent-led pricing and promotions workflows lead to 10% higher value perception and 3-5% higher gross profit. 

BCG estimates that retailers increase productivity by 30% when integrating AI agents within their organizations. By bringing in AI agents designed to create and manage promotions, companies can reduce errors, cut manual work and increase sales. 

But because promotions are high-stakes, keeping humans in the loop for approvals is critical. With an AI promotions agent, the human role moves from builder to reviewer. The agent handles the configuration work so merchants can focus on reviewing the promotion — not building it from scratch.

What merchants can do with the commercetools Promotions Agent

The commercetools Promotions Agent enables merchants to create and manage promotions using natural language, available in the business tooling all of our customers already have access to: The Merchant Center. 

An AI promotions agent covers the gap between a campaign brief and a live discount. Using a tool like commercetools Promotions Agent, here are five actions you can hand off to an agent.

1. Create promotions from a brief

Merchants describe the promotion in plain language or paste it into the brief itself; then the agent drafts it as a cart discount, product discount or discount code This includes complex mechanics like buy-and-get, bundles, spend-and-save, shipping discounts and gift-with-purchase.

The Promotions Agent works out the discount type, scope and conditions, and matches the right products, categories and customer groups from your project. A promotion like “Offer free standard shipping on all orders over $75 for the first week of December” becomes a ready-to-review draft, with no manual building required. 

2. Set up new promotion types with ease

Merchants can use the Promotions Agent to configure promotion types they’ve never run before, simply by describing the desired outcome in plain language. Instead of searching through technical documentation or spending days or weeks on trial and error, the agent guides the setup and creates a draft for review. This helps teams get new promotions up and running faster while reducing the need for support tickets.

3. Update promotions in bulk

Changes rarely affect just one discount. Instead of opening each promotion in turn, merchants can describe the change once, for example, “Extend all active summer promotions by three days,” and the agent finds the relevant discounts and proposes the updates for review.

4. Handle localized content

The Promotions Agent can turn one promotion into multiple languages, store locations and countries. Promotion names and descriptions are automatically populated for every language enabled in your project, so teams don’t have to write and translate the same promotional copy for each store.

5. Work with your guidelines

Every business has its own rules and guardrails for promotions. Teams can give the agent custom instructions, such as naming conventions, default stacking modes, validity periods or how to use the description field. They can also define business rules to prevent costly mistakes, such as restricting percentage discounts to a maximum of 20% or flagging unsupported discount types that could cause customer-facing errors. The agent applies these instructions when creating promotions, warning users when a request conflicts with company guidelines and helping ensure every draft follows business standards from the start.

Promotions Agent keeps the merchant in control, activating promotions only when you’re confident and ready. When looking for an AI tool, look for one that’s conversational, guided and integrated into platforms and workflows you already use so you don’t have to switch tools.

How commercetools Promotions Agent works: 6 steps

So, what does an agent-led pricing and promotions workflow look like? Here’s an example using Promotions Agent:

1. Open the Promotions Agent from the Merchant Center. Users open the function in the Merchant Center, so there’s no separate tool to log in to and no learning curve.

2. Describe the promotion in plain text, or start from a template. Users start with a prompt sharing the key details. They can also start with a template or paste a campaign brief directly. 

3. Answer clarifying questions, if any. If something essential is missing or needs clarification, the agent asks before going further.

4. Review the draft summary. Promotions Agent proposes the discount(s) and presents them in plain-language labels. Promotions Agent also fills in the name and description for all of the campaign’s locations.

5. Save or refine. Users can save the draft as is, or adjust details. Progress is auto-saved.

6. Activate. Once the users have finalized and approved the promotion, they push it active when ready.

Why AI workflows matter during peak season

Black Friday and Cyber Monday show where AI agents pay dividends in retail operations. In peak season, merchants schedule promotions back-to-back, each one requiring multiple configurations against a tight deadline. 

When the market moves or a competitor drops its price, a set of live promotions needs to change fast, without errors. For instance, BCG estimates that AI agents enable retailers to respond to competitors’ pricing 50x faster.

The Promotions Agent helps in two ways:

• Build campaigns faster. For a new campaign, merchants describe what they want and get a draft in minutes. Instead of configuring each rule by hand, simply paste in the brief, answer any clarifying questions and review and refine what the agent proposes.

• React faster to last-minute changes. When plans change, merchants describe the change in plain language, for example, “Increase the discount on all active Black Friday promotions from 20% to 25%.” The agent drafts the updated discounts, and the merchant only reviews and approves. 

Faster configuration doesn’t mean giving up control. It means being responsive to the market when it matters most. Just as important, with an AI agent behind the scenes to automate configuration, manual errors that creep in during a stressful period are reduced, and the merchant still approves before anything goes live.

A simpler way to manage promotions

Using an AI agent for promotions means offloading the slowest, most tedious part of the workflow to automation, allowing teams to focus on other valuable tasks. 

Before, building and managing promotions meant building rules, filling in fields and making the same repetitive updates across dozens of discounts.

With Promotions Agent, merchants can describe their goal, review the configuration and make the final call — all before finishing their cup of coffee. 

Ready to see it in action? Request a commercetools demo to see commercetools’ AI commerce tools. For existing customers, submit a support request with your Project key.

FAQs

What is AI-powered promotions management?

AI-powered promotions management uses artificial intelligence to help retailers create, update and manage discounts and promotional campaigns. AI agents can turn plain-language instructions into promotion drafts, automate repetitive configuration tasks and reduce manual work while keeping merchants in control.

How does an AI promotions agent work?

An AI promotions agent translates a campaign brief written in natural language into a draft promotion. It identifies the discount type, eligible products, conditions and other settings, asks clarifying questions when needed, and prepares the draft for human review and approval before activation.

What can commercetools Promotions Agent do?

commercetools Promotions Agent helps merchants create promotions from plain-text instructions, update multiple promotions in bulk, generate localized promotion names and descriptions, and apply custom business guidelines. It supports promotion types such as cart discounts, product discounts, discount codes, buy-and-get offers and shipping discounts.

How does AI help retailers manage promotions during peak season?

AI agents help retailers launch campaigns faster and respond more efficiently to last-minute changes during busy periods such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Merchants can describe updates in plain language rather than manually reconfiguring individual promotions, helping reduce operational effort and the risk of errors.

Does an AI promotions agent replace human approval?

No. An AI promotions agent assists with promotion configuration, but merchants retain control over the final decision. With commercetools Promotions Agent, users can review and refine draft promotions before approving and activating them.

What are the benefits of automating promotions management?

Automating promotions management can reduce repetitive manual work, improve configuration consistency, lower the risk of pricing errors and help retailers respond faster to changing market conditions. It also gives commerce and merchandising teams more time to focus on campaign strategy, customer engagement and performance optimization.

How can retailers get started with commercetools Promotions Agent?

Merchants can access commercetools Promotions Agent through the Merchant Center. They describe a promotion in plain language or start with a template, review the generated draft, make any necessary refinements and activate the promotion once approved. Existing commercetools customers can contact support for assistance, while prospective customers can request a demo.