Enterprise software firm Salesforce has become the latest global tech giant to join the generative artificial intelligence (AI) movement.
The company yesterday launched Einstein GPT, which it claims is the world’s first generative AI customer relationship management (CRM) technology that delivers AI-created content across sales, service, marketing, commerce and IT interaction, at hyperscale.
Salesforce follows in the footsteps of Microsoft, Meta and Google, which have made significant investments in generative AI this year.
The tech behemoths, including Salesforce, have also announced large-scale job cuts this year, as they shift focus to AI technologies.
Last week, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the social media firm is creating a new top-level product group at the Facebook parent company, focused on generative AI, to turbocharge its work in the emerging technology.
In January, software giant Microsoft made a “multibillion-dollar” investment in OpenAI, the start-up company that developed viral bot ChatGPT.
Google is also testing its newly-developed conversational AI-powered chatbot, Bard, which is expected to rival AI start-up OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
The Brainy Insights estimates the generative AI market will grow from $8.65 billion in 2022, to reach $188.62 billion by 2032.
Einstein GPT will infuse Salesforce’s proprietary AI models with generative AI technology from an ecosystem of partners and real-time data from the Salesforce Data Cloud, which ingests, harmonises and unifies all of a company’s customer data, says the enterprise software firm in a statement.
With Einstein GPT, it explains, customers can connect that data to OpenAI’s advanced AI models out of the box, or choose their own external model and use natural-language prompts directly within their Salesforce CRM to generate content that continuously adapts to changing customer information and needs in real-time.
For example, it adds, Einstein GPT can generate personalised e-mails for salespeople to send to clients, generate specific responses for customer service professionals to more quickly answer customer questions, generate targeted content for marketers to increase campaign response rates, and auto-generate code for developers.
“The world is experiencing one of the most profound technological shifts with the rise of real-time technologies and generative AI. This comes at a pivotal moment, as every company is focused on connecting with their customers in more intelligent, automated and personalised ways,” says Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.
“Einstein GPT, in combination with our Data Cloud and integrated in all of our clouds, as well as Tableau, MuleSoft and Slack, is another way we are opening the door to the AI future for all our customers, and we’ll be integrating with OpenAI at launch.”
Salesforce is combining OpenAI’s enterprise-grade ChatGPT technology with Salesforce’s private AI models to deliver relevant and trusted AI-generated content, it says.
“We’re excited to apply the power of OpenAI’s technology to CRM,” says Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI. “This will allow more people to benefit from this technology, and it allows us to learn more about real-world usage, which is critical to the responsible development and deployment of AI – a belief that Salesforce shares with us.”
Salesforce also announced a Generative AI Fund from Salesforce Ventures, the company’s global investment arm.
“The new $250 million fund will invest in high-potential start-ups, bolster the start-up ecosystem, and spark the development of responsible, trusted and generative AI,” says Salesforce.
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