Marc Benioff, co-CEO of Salesforce.com Inc., speaks at a panel session at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Tuesday, May 24, 2022.
Hollie Adams | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Salesforce is the latest technological powerhouse to join the ChatGPT craze.
The company said Tuesday it will release software that incorporates artificial intelligence to help salespeople, customer service agents and marketers do their jobs. Salesforce calls the offering Einstein GPT, based on OpenAI technology that has taken the tech industry by storm. by storm since the Microsoft-backed startup opened ChatGPT to the public in November.
Leading tech companies are jockeying to capitalize on increased interest in generative AI, which can spit out text or other information after learning from pools of data collected from the Internet. These AI models sometimes show wrong information, prompting companies that sell to big businesses and governments to proceed with caution.
“We’re moving as quickly as possible without compromising the responsible ethical approach,” Clara Shih, CEO of Salesforce’s Service Cloud business, said in an interview.
Like Salesforce, Microsoft is trying to keep the spread of incorrect information to a minimum as it brings AI features to its competing Dynamics 365 software. Microsoft he said Monday that users can join a waiting list for a customer service feature that automatically composes email messages, after announcing a similar feature for sales representatives last month. Separately, Microsoft is adding OpenAI’s chatbot to its Bing search engine.
A function that Salesforce will implement in Service Cloud will be a chat box with technology that can write an answer to a question based on the information already stored in Salesforce. Agents can edit the auto-generated response or hit the send button.
Salesforce, which has come under pressure of late from activist investors it becomes more profitable, has not finalized the price or timing for the new features. Leaders first want to see how things are going with organizations enrolled in Salesforce’s pilot program.
Salesforce has taken various steps to keep Einstein GPT capabilities from misinforming people. In addition to the involvement of the human agent, the company has narrowed the field of data that can influence the response.
Salesforce and Microsoft offer services that can write marketing emails. Microsoft calls the new AI part of its applications Dynamics Copilot.
“It’s not Autopilot,” said Charles Lamanna, Microsoft’s corporate vice president. “It gives me the options, but I’m the editor. I choose the option that goes into the campaign.”
Salesforce also introduces a new ChatGPT app for Slack that can display information derived from Salesforce. OpenAI built the app and has been using it for the past few months, Shih said during a media briefing on Monday. People can sign up to join a waiting list for the Slack app, a Salesforce spokesperson said.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff is on hype. He mentioned AI 14 times on the company’s earnings call last week.
“Combined with our Data Cloud and deeply integrated with Customer 360, including Tableau, MuleSoft and Slack, Einstein GPT will open the door to the next level of intelligence and drive digital transformation in our new AI world,” Benioff said in a statement about. the new offer.
Shih said Salesforce began working with OpenAI’s language models more than a year ago, but the excitement in the space has accelerated the timeline to give early access of the new features to customers.
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