Cambridge, MA, March 17, 2026 – Proton.ai today launched the first industry cloud platform purpose-built for distribution, offering a unified suite of AI-powered products that replaces the patchwork of disconnected tools most distributors rely on today. Each module helps distributors grow wallet share, protect margins, eliminate the manual busywork that quietly bleeds the bottom line, and deliver smarter, faster, and more personalized service to their customers.
An Industry Cloud Platform Built for Distribution
The point solutions most distributors rely on to run their business were never designed to work together. As a result, they trap data in siloes and teams spend hours rekeying information between systems. Every additional tool adds another software contract, another integration to maintain, and more overhead. The cost adds up.
Proton.ai's current platform brings together four products on a single shared data layer: a CRM, a PIM, an eCommerce recommendation engine, and a Quote and Order Entry automation tool. Consolidating onto one platform means fewer software contracts, lower integration and maintenance costs, and no more duplicated work across disconnected systems. And those savings compound as the business grows.
Each one gets smarter as the others do, and every distributor's data stays their own: exportable, portable and never used to train models for anyone else.
Proton.ai CRM: Know exactly who to call, what to pitch, and when to reach out
Most CRMs are built to record what's already happened. Proton.ai CRM is built to drive what happens next. Deployed by distributors worldwide, it uses AI agents trained on full ERP order history to take on the part of the job that shouldn't require a human: figuring out which accounts need attention, which products to pitch and when to reach out. A rep's day arrives pre-built. Their job is to show up for customers and sell.
Proton.ai PIM: Stop losing money to bad product data
NAED research puts the cost of bad product data for electrical distributors alone at $2.4 billion annually, encompassing lost sales, returns and hours spent on manual enrichment. Proton.ai PIM uses AI agents to automatically scrape, enrich and normalize product data from manufacturer sources, turning one to two hours of manual work per SKU into seconds. And unlike services that hand every distributor identical content, Proton.ai PIM generates unique descriptions and field data. The result is a direct SEO advantage: product pages that are differentiated by default, better indexed, higher-ranking and built to convert. It works standalone or layers on top of an existing PIM.
"We’ve had a lot of issues with inconsistent product data across our ERP and eCommerce platforms: duplicate records, missing descriptions, incomplete specs,” shared Charlie Connerly, Vice President of IT, Trade Supply Group. “It was the biggest pain point I heard when I came on board. We needed a solution that could enrich tens of thousands of SKUs with accurate, detailed product information, and we needed it to be something our buyers and product managers could use, not just IT. Proton's PIM delivered on both fronts. The AI enrichment is fast, the data quality is strong, and it's giving us the foundation to transform our online customer experience."
Proton.ai eCommerce AI: Turn your website into your best salesperson
A distributor's website shouldn't just display products; it should sell them. Proton.ai's recommendation engine embeds Amazon-style personalized carousels trained on a distributor's complete order history across every channel. The result: a 10 to 17% lift in average order value and conversion rates 3 to 5 times higher than platform-native alternatives.
Proton.ai Quote and Order Entry: Free your reps from the inbox (Waitlist now open)
Reps spend hours every day manually keying orders from emails and PDFs, time that could be spent selling. Proton.ai reads incoming orders and quotes, drafts them for rep review, and gets them into the system faster. When your email, catalog, pricing and inventory all talk to each other, an AI agent can match the request to products in your catalog, check stock and have a draft ready before a rep would have even opened the attachment. Join the waitlist here.
The Problem With Point Solutions
Most distributors rely on multiple software tools to run their business, from ERP and CRM to PIM, BI tools, eCommerce platforms and more. Even when built specifically for distribution, most of these systems operate in isolation, trapping critical data in silos. This gap forces distribution teams to spend hours each week exporting data from one system, rekeying it into another, and reconciling the differences. Software is supposed to do the work. Instead, it creates more of it.
"Distributors have been sold point solutions for years and told it's their job to make them work together," said Benj Cohen, Founder and CEO of Proton.ai. "We think that's backwards. Distributors deserve software that makes their job easier, not harder."
When customer data, product data and order automation all run on the same foundation, operating costs go down without sacrificing the service that makes customers loyal. That's how distributors compete. Not by buying more software or hiring more people, but by finally making the systems they have work together.
"MSC made an early bet on Proton in 2021, believing leaps in distribution effectiveness would come from artificial intelligence,” said Martina McIsaac, CEO of MSC. “That bet has paid off with Proton becoming an important partner, helping us enhance revenue generation and automate work to improve our speed and efficiency. Since that time, we have doubled down on AI-enabled solutions across the entire enterprise to move our business forward.”
What's Next
With AI Pricing and Inventory Management coming next, Proton.ai is building toward a platform where every piece works together and makes the others more effective over time. The goal is to take the most tedious, repetitive parts of running a distributorship off people's plates and give teams the information they need to make better decisions faster, across the entire business.
Availability
Proton.ai CRM, eCommerce AI and PIM are available today. The Quote and Order Entry waitlist is open here.
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