Magento AI Intelligent Faceting: The ultimate guide to better product discovery

We’ve all been there. You land on a B2B or a complex e-commerce site, you know they have the specific part or product you need, but you just can't seem to find it. A generic search bar that demands exact keywords is no help when you're navigating a catalog with thousands of items and technical specs. It’s a quick way to get frustrated and just give up.

Luckily, platforms like Magento (now Adobe Commerce) are getting smarter. They’re using AI-powered features to make the search experience feel less like a guessing game and more like a helpful conversation. It’s all about guiding customers to the right product, not making them work for it.

This guide will walk you through what Magento AI Intelligent Faceting is, how it works, and where it falls short. More importantly, we'll look at how to create a discovery experience that helps both the customers on your site and the support team working behind the scenes.

What is Magento AI Intelligent Faceting?

Let's unpack the term. "Faceting" is really just a fancy word for smart filters. You know that sidebar on an e-commerce site that lets you narrow down products by size, color, brand, or other specifications? That’s it. It helps people sort through a mountain of options to find exactly what they’re looking for.

The "intelligent" part is where the AI comes in, specifically Adobe Sensei in Magento's case. Instead of showing the same fixed list of filters for every single search, the AI looks at the search term and what other shoppers are doing to show the most relevant filters at that moment.

For example, if someone searches for "running shoes," the AI might prioritize filters for "brand" and "size." But a search for "industrial valves" would probably bring "material" and "pressure rating" to the top. This small change saves a ton of clicks and guesswork, getting customers to the right product much faster by anticipating what they'll need next.

Key features of Magento AI Intelligent Faceting

AI-powered search does a lot more than just improve filters. It helps create a shopping journey that feels dynamic and personal, turning a simple search bar into a tool that actually helps people buy things.

AI-driven relevance

What's really neat about the AI is how it learns from user behavior. The algorithms watch what people click on, what they add to their carts, their purchase history, and even how long they look at a page. It uses all this information to constantly re-rank search results. This means your most popular or best-selling products naturally find their way to the top, which is a big step up from static catalog sorting.

It also allows for a new level of personalization. The system can start to recognize different types of customers and tweak the experience for them. A returning B2B client, for example, might see results prioritized based on their past orders or products related to their industry, making it feel like the store actually gets their business.

Dynamic filtering

We touched on this already, but it’s a big deal. Intelligent faceting doesn’t just show the right filters; it also hides the ones that aren’t relevant. This cleans up the interface and makes it less overwhelming for the user.

This is a huge improvement over old-school layered navigation, which often throws a giant list of options at you, where half of them lead to a dead end with "0 results." The AI makes sure that every filter you see is actually useful and will lead to a real product, which keeps the whole discovery process moving smoothly.

Handling synonyms and typos

AI search is smart enough to understand context, not just exact words. It knows that "sneakers" is another word for "running shoes," a "laptop" is a "notebook computer," and it can handle common misspellings without just giving up and showing no results.

This is more important than you might think. One study found that 27% of e-commerce sites fail to return useful results if a shopper misspells just one letter in their search. An AI-powered search handles these little human errors gracefully, preventing the kind of search abandonment that can really hurt conversion rates.

A screenshot of the Magento AI Image Search feature, which demonstrates how Magento AI Intelligent Faceting can handle complex search queries.

The limits of Magento AI Intelligent Faceting

Magento AI Intelligent Faceting is a fantastic tool for helping customers find products in your catalog. But what happens when their question isn't about a product attribute? What if they need help, not just a filter?

This is where a storefront-only search tool has its limits. The AI in Magento is great at understanding the product catalog, but it’s typically clueless about anything outside of it. It can’t answer important questions like, "What’s your return policy for bulk orders?" or "Do you offer installation services for this equipment?" This creates information gaps, where answers exist somewhere in the company but are impossible to find through the main search bar on your site. At that point, frustrated customers either leave or file a support ticket, which adds to your team's workload and creates a clunky experience.

When customers need more than a product filter

A product search tool, even a smart one, can't handle the kinds of questions that come up with any big purchase. Think about things like:

• Pre-sale questions: "Will this part work with my existing machine, model X?"

• Post-sale support: "How do I fix error code 45 on this device?"

• Logistics and policies: "What are my shipping options to Germany?"

When your search bar can't answer these, the customer's journey hits a snag. They're forced to switch gears, either hunting for a contact page or sending off an annoyed email.

Why your support team needs more

Once that support ticket comes in, your agents have their own search problem. They need to find the right answer, and fast, but the information could be anywhere: a help center article, an old ticket in Zendesk, an internal process doc on Confluence, or a spec sheet buried in a Google Doc.

This is where a tool like eesel AI can make a real difference. It’s built to bring all your knowledge sources together, not just the product catalog. Instead of being stuck in one system, eesel AI connects to your help desk, internal wikis, and even learns from past support tickets. This allows its AI Copilot to help your agents draft accurate, context-aware replies in seconds by pulling information from every corner of your business to solve the customer's real problem.

Pricing and setup

If you want to add AI search to your Magento store, you basically have two options: use the built-in Adobe solution or go with a third-party extension. Both have their own costs and setup hurdles.

Adobe Commerce Live Search

• Pricing: The good news is that Live Search is included for free if you have an Adobe Commerce license. The catch? It's not available for the open-source version of Magento. Getting access means investing in the Adobe Commerce platform, which can be a serious expense for a lot of businesses.

• Implementation: Since it's a native tool, it integrates well, but you’ll still need a developer to install the module and get everything configured in the admin panel. It’s not quite a simple flick of a switch.

Third-party AI search extensions

Several popular extensions, like Klevu and Doofinder, can bring AI search capabilities to Magento. They’re powerful tools but come with their own things to think about.

• Pricing: These extensions usually have a subscription fee, and the price can change a lot depending on your search traffic, catalog size, and the features you need. This can make your budget a bit unpredictable.

• Implementation: Because they're third-party modules, they add another moving part to your Magento site. You have to deal with installation, setup, and making sure they don't clash with other extensions or custom code you might have.

Tool	Pricing Model	Starting Price (Approx.)	Key Feature
Adobe Live Search	Included with Adobe Commerce license	N/A (requires expensive license)	Native integration, powered by Adobe Sensei
Klevu	Tiered, based on search usage/SKUs	~$599/month	Self-learning search, automated catalog enrichment
Doofinder	Tiered, based on search requests	Starts free, paid plans from ~$39/month	AI personalization, visual search

A more flexible way to think about it

There’s also a different way to approach this. For example, eesel AI isn't another Magento module you have to install and maintain. It's a self-serve platform that connects to the tools you already use, like your help desk and knowledge bases, and you can get it up and running in minutes.

The pricing is straightforward. With plans that don't charge per resolution, you don't get penalized for having a busy month or for successfully helping more customers. You can start small, maybe by automating answers to simple Tier 1 questions, and then expand as you see it working. There's no need for a massive, high-stakes project just to get started with AI.

Tying Magento AI Intelligent Faceting with Customer Support

Magento AI Intelligent Faceting is a huge step up for finding products on your site. When it’s set up right, it can definitely help boost conversions by making it easier for customers to find what they're looking for.

But that only solves one piece of the puzzle. A truly great customer experience needs that same intelligence to stretch from your storefront all the way to your support team. When your search tool can only see the product catalog, you're creating a dead end for any customer who has a more complicated question.

The best approach is to pair a strong storefront search with a unified AI that helps both your customers and your own team. By connecting all of your company knowledge, you can provide quick, accurate answers wherever they're needed.

Stop making your customers and your support team hunt for information. eesel AI brings your help desk, product info, and internal docs together to deliver instant answers everywhere. Give it a try for free and see how you can automate frontline support in minutes, not months.