Ecom: The Future. AI, Innovation Chat

3M is turning product discovery into a self-serve commerce workflow with Ask 3M 3M says its 60,000-product catalog had become a barrier to conversion, so it launched Ask 3M, an AI assistant that answers technical questions from verified internal documentation across 49 technology platforms. Industrial buyers can describe an application in plain language, compare materials, and get product guidance without waiting for a rep. 3M paired that assistant with its Digital Materials Hub, where engineers can test how a material might behave before building a physical prototype. PYMNTS reports that Ask 3M can also connect recommendations to authorized distributors, which means search, technical validation, and purchase intent now sit inside one workflow. The commerce shift is concrete: AI is not just summarizing products here. It is reducing catalog friction at the exact moment a complex B2B sale would usually stall.