Exploring the Applications of AI in the Salesforce Ecosystem

AI has been all the rage since Open AI’s ChatGPT became mainstream in November of 2022. As with every new technology, it has been met with equal amounts of awe, skepticism, and debate, with some hailing it as a revolutionary breakthrough and others fearing its unforeseen consequences.

Although Salesforce has been dabbling with AI technology since 2014, it was in 2016 that it successfully launched Einstein AI to take its capabilities up a few notches. Fast forward to today, AI technology is still a core component of Salesforce that helps businesses streamline operations to a great extent.

But with Einstein’s continued evolution, the question remains: where does AI within Salesforce head next?

This blog will explore the current trajectory of AI in the Salesforce ecosystem and what we can expect in the coming years.

The Role of AI in the Salesforce Ecosystem as of Today

As touched upon earlier, AI in Salesforce is not something new. Salesforce has been using and developing its proprietary AI technology, aptly named Einstein AI, for nearly a decade now.

Today, it has become a force to reckon with and has been infused into every nook and cranny of the Salesforce ecosystem. The following are the AI products in Salesforce that are making waves in the industry:

Einstein Discovery

Einstein Discovery is a Salesforce AI business intelligence tool that is integrated into every product of the Salesforce ecosystem. It is designed to help businesses discover and visualize patterns in their data with a few simple clicks. 

Einstein Sales Cloud

The Einstein Sales Cloud is a specialized AI tool in Salesforce that, as its name alludes to, is designed to help businesses increase their sales by providing predictions, recommendations, and automation for leads, opportunities, and forecasts.

Einstein Knowledge

Einstein Knowledge is another powerful tool within the salesforce ecosystem that uses the power of generative AI and Machine learning to help businesses create, manage, and deliver knowledge articles.

Einstein Journey Builder

Einstein Journey Builder is a Salesforce service that allows marketers to create personalized customer journeys across different channels and devices. It helps marketers with information such as the best time to contact potential customers based on their engagement history and via what medium.

These are just a few among a plethora of AI products that Salesforce has added to its ecosystem.

New AI Tools Coming into the Salesforce Ecosystem

A couple of months ago, Salesforce CEO and Co-Founder Marc Benioff hosted the Salesforce AI Day. This event laid out the road map for where Salesforce was headed in the field of AI, specifically with Generative AI.

No less than 16 brand new tools were announced that would be rolling out (or have been rolled out by the time you read this) in the coming months. The following are just some of the tools in the pipeline.

Sales Email Generation with Page Contexts

A part of Salesforce’s Sales GPT, this tool will help sales reps generate highly personalized and relevant emails in an instant. However, the tool party trick is the ability to draft responses in the same tone and in a manner that matches the context of the entire email trail.

Case Summarization

The tool will be added to Salesforce Service GPT’s suite of tools and is designed to help boost agent efficiency by summarizing  (documenting) the entire conversation with a customer before wrapping up a case.

Quick Answers for Service Agents

Another potential time saver for service agents, this AI tool will use the power of NLP to generate quick answers for agent queries rather than them having to lose precious time searching for answers manually.

Segment Generation

This feature will be launched as part of Salesforce’s Marketing GPT and Commerce GPT services and is designed to help marketers create and optimize customer segments based on various attributes and behaviors.

 

 

What Does the Future of AI Look Like in the Salesforce Ecosystem?

Salesforce is the undisputed titan when it comes to CRMs, and its focus on innovation is the driving factor that has helped it get to this point. As of today, Generative AI is poised to be the future of technology, and there is no doubt that Salesforce is going to capitalize on it.

Here is what we can expect from an amalgamation of Salesforce and AI in the coming years:

AI Will Be an Integral Part of the Salesforce Ecosystem

The phase shift toward AI will bring about a number of changes in the way Salesforce operates.

For starters, AI skills will become a prerequisite for all Salesforce Roles. That said, while AI in all its forms (Predictive, Generative, and Conversational) does hold tremendous promise and is no doubt getting better by the day, it’s still safe to say that they are a long way off before they can become fully autonomous.

So, at best, we could see AI becoming a trusty companion for employees and all salesforce users rather than a replacement.

Clear Guidelines on Its Use Will Need to Be Established

As the use of AI in the Salesforce ecosystem increases, a strong and clear set of guidelines will have to be put in place that will take into account security, privacy, transparency, and accountability.

Although Salesforce has already committed to upholding ethics above all when it comes to AI usage, the same will have to be applied across the board as the use of this technology becomes more widespread.

Hyper-Personalization Will Be the New Normal

The customers of today have become accustomed to personalized services; in fact, surveys have shown that over 73% of them expect it from businesses and services.

With AI, Salesforce will help businesses create hyper-personalized customer journeys across different channels to offer the ultimate customer experiences, thus improving customer loyalty and, in turn, their bottom line.

Wrapping It Up

Salesforce has always been a magnet for innovation, and this mantra will see AI in the Salesforce ecosystem in a big way in the coming years. That said, while AI will bring about a complete overhaul of how Salesforce operates, nothing can replace human experience.

So, at the moment, AI will end up being a co-pilot at best.

While AI in Salesforce will eventually make hyper-personalization a reality, as of today, crafting the perfect message for each customer still requires a human touch.

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