Boston Scientific, a $17 billion global leader in medical devices, is reshaping what digital commerce looks like in the B2B space. Over the past four years, the company has undergone a significant digital transformation — driven by a simple but powerful question: How do we make it easier for our customers and sales teams to do business with us? or how AI-search can enhance both customer experience and sales efficiency.
At recent SAPPHIRE events in Madrid and Orlando, Deirdre Peters, Head of Digital Experience at Boston Scientific, spoke about a shift in mindset that’s reshaping how B2B organizations think about search, relevance, and the customer experience.
Boston Scientific’s journey didn’t begin with AI. It started with a paper catalog.
From Paper to Platform
In 2019, Boston Scientific brought on Deirdre Peters to lead a digital overhaul of how customers interacted with the business. With an impressive background in ecommerce — including time at Nike — Peters brought a deep understanding of how to deliver intuitive, scalable digital experiences. What began as a traditional ecommerce initiative quickly evolved into something much more ambitious: a new model for enabling B2B buyers and empowering sales reps.
At first, the focus was on launching an online ordering experience using SAP Commerce Cloud. But it became clear that this wasn’t just about digitizing transactions. It was about fundamentally reimagining how non-clinical buyers, procurement officers, materials managers, and nurses for example, found and purchased products in a space historically optimized for physicians.
“Just because we go to work doesn’t mean we want a worse experience. Whether they’re nurses, procurement, or IT, our customers want simplicity, speed, and relevance.”
Deirdre Peters, Head of Digital Experience at Boston Scientific
Previously, buyers had to navigate outdated paper catalogs, comb through static PDFs, and call reps to identify SKUs. Reps, meanwhile, were buried in repetitive tasks, fielding product questions, placing orders, and piecing together answers from disconnected systems.
The ecommerce platform changed that. It became a digital hub not just for transactions but for discovery, support, and engagement. With over 5,000 field reps using it to facilitate orders and customer conversations, the site quickly proved its value on both sides of the relationship.
When Search Becomes the Bottleneck
The launch of Boston Scientific’s ecommerce site delivered major improvements in product access and order tracking, but one persistent issue remained: search. Customers routinely reported that they couldn’t find the products they needed. A simple query like “stent” could return 1,200 results, even though only a couple dozen were manufactured by Boston Scientific. That volume of noise was enough to frustrate users and drive them back to calling sales reps — defeating the ecommerce site purpose and value.
The problem wasn’t just technical. With only two merchandisers supporting the site, there was limited capacity to tune relevancy, curate product listings, or build out personalized experiences.
Additionally, search improvements were often pushed down the IT development priority list in favor of needed site improvements.
Search had become the bottleneck to better customer experience, to rep efficiency, and to long-term growth.
Reimagining Search: The Case for Coveo
Boston Scientific recognized the need to sharpen their focus on improving the customer experience which would also help accelerate growth and boost rep efficiency. And the efficient way to do that was through an improved search experience fueled by AI.
“Every provider I spoke to said, ‘Coveo does this really well.’ So I looked into it. Not only was the product impressive — the people behind it were exceptional too. Coveo has the most amazing team that I absolutely love working with. For me, it’s not just about good technology, but good people. That’s important as we go through our journey and form partnerships.”
To move forward, the team had to build a simple, but strong business case. In B2B, repeat buyers rely on search. If it fails, they disengage — and conversions drop. Peters put it simply: “Let’s get more people searching again. Let’s increase the conversion rate of those who do.”
With executive buy-in, Boston Scientific launched Coveo — and the impact was immediate.
Search That Performs — and Pays Off
Coveo offers a robust platform, and Boston Scientific is still working through the different phases of that journey. But even now, the impact is clear.
Take a search like “radial jaw”— a device used in colonoscopy biopsies. While the use case may be clinical, the experience is beautifully executed: the exact product is returned, supported by clean imagery, clear facets, and relevant filters. It’s a small but powerful example of what happens when AI-powered search understands the user’s intent.
The rollout itself was simple: relevance-driven, AI-search trained on Boston Scientific’s product data. And the results? Remarkable.
- The team projected $3M in revenue uplift during year one — and is now on track for $10M
- Search conversion rates have improved by 16%
- Search engagement is up 13%, showing that customers trust the experience
- Ecommerce is delivering a 16% lift in incremental revenue across all channels, including fax, phone, email, and EDI
- Customer retention is 15% higher
“We launched with Coveo less than a year ago and the results have been incredible.”
These gains go beyond numbers—they represent a shift in customer behavior. More buyers are choosing to self-serve, staying in digital channels longer, and discovering products on their own. Reps, in turn, are spending less time fielding basic requests and more time on value-added conversations.
Some have even called the experience life-changing. One sales rep shared that they forgot their employee number because instead of calling the sales support team every day, they no longer have to call in at all.
When search works, the entire business works better.
What’s Next: From Search Box to Intent Engine
It’s hard to believe Boston Scientific was operating from a paper catalog just five years ago. Today, the company is all in on AI, and the next phase of the journey is focused on turning search into something smarter: an intent engine.
The team’s roadmap includes rolling out generative answering— allowing users to ask complex questions like “Is this product compatible with my capital equipment?” and receive instant, AI-generated answers. Instead of launching a chatbot, which can carry negative connotations or disrupt the flow, Boston Scientific is doubling down on the search bar as the primary interface for engagement.
“The insight from Coveo was simple but powerful: your users are already asking questions in the search bar. It’s not a search box — it’s an intent box.”
That shift in thinking is also shaping the company’s approach to personalization. Right now, every customer sees the same site experience. But in the near future, a cardiology department and a vein clinic will have entirely different product listings, recommendations, and content tailored to their specialty, region, and buying behavior.
With generative AI powering answers and personalization guiding product discovery, Boston Scientific is building a digital experience that’s not just responsive; it’s intuitive.
Advice for Other B2B Leaders: Keep It Real
In a space where digital transformation can often feel overengineered or disconnected from day-to-day realities, Boston Scientific is offering a different model: one built on practical innovation, customer empathy, and strategic AI adoption.
Peters ended the session with this advice:
“Start with the problem, not the platform. Keep it simple. Make it easier for customers to do business with you. If AI can help, great, but don’t force it.”
For any B2B organization navigating digital transformation, Boston Scientific’s journey offers a valuable blueprint: lead with intent, measure what matters, and put the customer experience at the center of everything.