Conversational Discovery

Coveo Conversational Product Discovery is an agentic AI layer built directly into Coveo for Commerce that lets shoppers describe needs in natural language and receive curated product results, answers, and comparisons — all within the existing search interface, not a separate chatbot. It is designed for mid-market to enterprise retailers who want to improve conversion from exploratory traffic without replacing their current search stack or losing merchandising control. Unlike standalone conversational tools that fragment the shopping journey, Coveo embeds conversation into the core of commerce search, preserving the speed, relevance, and deterministic layouts that merchandisers depend on. The tool is available as an add-on for Coveo for Commerce customers and is aimed at retailers with large catalogs who need to guide shoppers from vague intent to purchase-ready selections.

The system works through a Discovery Agent that interprets shopper intent in real time, retrieves products from the indexed catalog, and assembles responses grounded in catalog data and enterprise guardrails. Key capabilities include a Unified Conversational Experience that blends chat into search results, Adaptive Canvas & Discovery Layouts that dynamically switch between product search, comparison, bundles, and education views depending on the shopper's question, and Contextual Refinement that preserves full context across multi-step interactions — so a shopper can refine, compare, and bundle without losing their place. Intent-Driven Orchestration coordinates multiple AI models to decide whether to refine the query, retrieve products, or present educational content, all while respecting merchandising rules. Coveo also offers over 15 proprietary AI models, including Listing Page Optimizer and Product Recommendations, and provides enterprise certifications such as ISO 27001, SOC 2 Type II, and GDPR/CCPA compliance, plus 99.999% uptime SLA.

Coveo is recognized as a Leader in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Search and Product Discovery (2025). Its primary competitors in the e-commerce search and product discovery space include Algolia, Bloomreach, Elastic, and Lucidworks. Unlike Algolia's developer-first search API or Bloomreach's content-and-commerce platform, Coveo differentiates by embedding conversational AI directly into the search experience rather than layering a chatbot on top. It also offers a MACH Alliance-certified, composable, API-first architecture that integrates with 100+ cloud and on-premise content sources, and a Merchandising Hub that gives retail teams deterministic control over layouts, content guardrails, and AI behavior — a feature set that appeals to merchants who want AI-driven discovery without sacrificing manual oversight.

The honest trade-off: Coveo Conversational Product Discovery is not a standalone product — it requires an existing Coveo for Commerce subscription, which can be a significant investment for smaller retailers. The conversational experience is search-native, meaning it augments rather than replaces the search bar; retailers expecting a full chatbot replacement may find the scope narrower than standalone conversational AI platforms. While Coveo offers over 15 AI models, the complexity of configuring intent orchestration and adaptive layouts may require dedicated technical resources or professional services. Additionally, the tool's effectiveness depends heavily on the quality and completeness of the indexed product catalog — retailers with sparse or inconsistent product data may not see the same lift in conversion or dead-end reduction. No explicit user-reported weaknesses were found in the provided sources, but the dependency on Coveo's ecosystem and the learning curve for merchandisers to set up guardrails are real considerations.

Available as an add-on for Coveo for Commerce; Coveo offers flexible AI-Search plans with scalable, modular pricing for unique business needs. No specific tier prices or per-query costs were disclosed in the provided sources.