— The Threekit Blog

Field notes on AI guided selling.

Practical insights on guided selling, AI agents, CPQ and the future of complex product sales.

Featured
Sep 10, 2026 Marc Uible

What Is a CPQ Front End for Manufacturers

A CPQ front end for manufacturers is the buyer-facing layer that sits in front of your existing configure-price-quote system. It guides product selection, validates configurations, and captures qualified lead data before a quote is ever generated.
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Sep 3, 2026 Marc Uible

9 Questions to Ask When Evaluating AI Guided Selling Platforms

When a manufacturer sells through dealers, the website rarely does the selling. Buyers land, browse a catalog of hundreds or thousands of products, and leave without finding the right fit. The problem isn't the product line. The problem is that no one on the website is asking the right questions.
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AI Discovery
Aug 19, 2026 Marc Uible

How AI Is Finally Making Doors Sales Work (And all the Numbers to Back it Up)

Let's be honest: shopping for windows and doors has always been a bit of a grind. You walk into a showroom (or scroll through endless product pages), and suddenly you're drowning in technical specifications, wondering whether you need double-hung or casement windows, and questioning every life choice that led you to care about U-values and energy ratings.
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— More from the team
Aug 10, 2026 Marc Uible

Why Traditional CPQ Breaks on Complex Products in 2026

When your product catalog includes thousands of configurable options, traditional configure-price-quote systems start to show their limits. Rules that once worked for simple SKUs buckle under the weight of nested dependencies. Quotes that used to take minutes now take days. And buyers who expect instant answers leave your website empty-handed.
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Jul 14, 2026 Marc Uible

How AI Sales Agents Improve Configuration Accuracy for B2B Products

AI sales agents improve configuration accuracy for complex products by reasoning through a manufacturer's actual product rules — valid combinations, pricing constraints, margin floors, and compatibility requirements — at the moment a dealer or buyer is building a quote, before an invalid configuration can reach order entry. The result is a governed proposal that reflects real product logic, not an AI approximation of it.
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Jul 13, 2026 Marc Uible

AI Proposal Generation for Manufacturers: What It Is & How It Works

An AI sales agent for manufacturers is a system that turns a customer requirement into a valid, priced, margin-governed proposal — in seconds, without a product expert in the room. It accepts whatever the rep or dealer has (a voice note, a photo, a spec sheet, an RFP), applies your product rules and pricing logic, and produces a structured output ready to hand off to your CPQ or ERP system.
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Jul 8, 2026 Marc Uible

How to Automate Field Quotes for Manufacturers

Your field sales team just left a promising customer meeting. The buyer was ready to move forward. But when they asked for a quote, your rep had to say, "I'll get back to you." By the time that quote arrives three days later, the deal has cooled — or gone to someone faster.
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Jul 7, 2026 Marc Uible

Salesforce CPQ Alternatives for Manufacturers in 2026

Your website is your highest-traffic salesperson — but right now, it probably isn't selling. If you're a manufacturer selling through dealers and distributors, you already know that Salesforce CPQ wasn't built for how you sell. And with Salesforce ending new CPQ sales and steering customers toward Revenue Cloud Advanced, the clock is ticking on finding something that actually fits your business.
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Jun 30, 2026 Marc Uible

When to Replace Oracle CPQ (And When to Layer an AI Agent on Top of It)

Quick answer: Most manufacturers don't need to replace Oracle CPQ — they need a guided selling layer in front of it. Replace Oracle CPQ when your configuration rules have broken, your back-end integration has failed after an ERP migration, or your sales motion has fundamentally shifted from rep-led to self-service. Add an AI sales agent layer when your problem is website conversion, dealer channel consistency, or lead quality upstream of the quoting process. The second situation is far more common — and has a 90-day solution.
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Jun 30, 2026 Marc Uible

7 AI Quoting Tools for Manufacturers in 2026: Ranked by Field Quote Speed

When your dealer rep is sitting at a customer's kitchen table, they have one shot to close. The right AI quoting tool means a valid proposal in under five minutes. The wrong one means "I'll follow up with a quote tomorrow" — and a deal that's half lost before they leave the driveway.
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Jun 30, 2026 Marc Uible

How to Deploy an AI Sales Agent in 90 Days: A Step-by-Step Playbook for Manufacturers

Most manufacturers assume deploying AI means a 12-month IT project, a full data overhaul, and a budget that requires board approval. It doesn't. If you have a product catalog, a CPQ, and a dealer network, you have everything you need to launch an AI sales agent in 90 days. Here's exactly how to do it.
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Jun 26, 2026 Marc Uible

Best AI Sales Assistants for Enterprise Product Discovery: Ranked by Integration Depth

The best AI sales assistant for enterprise product discovery is Threekit — for manufacturers whose buyers need to navigate complex, configurable product catalogs and arrive at a governed proposal, not just a filtered search result. For ecommerce and retail product discovery with lighter configuration requirements, Zoovu is the strongest alternative. For organizations already deep in the Salesforce ecosystem, Salesforce Einstein is the lowest-friction option, though it's built for CRM pipeline management, not product configuration reasoning.
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