Benioff starts off highlighting the company’s 25-year anniversary, before noting the sweeping transformation of the past year. Benioff also points out that Salesforce is now “the world’s #1 AI CRM, the third-largest enterprise software company and the largest enterprise applications company in the world.”

At the same time, fiscal year 2024 was an extraordinary year of transformation, thanks to the next generation of artificial intelligence. This could be the single most important moment in the history of our industry, and customers are turning to us to help them navigate this AI revolution and connect with their customers in a whole new way.

Benioff goes on to highlight the company’s goal of developing “the most trusted” AI products in the industry.

In fiscal year 2024, we set out to make our AI products the most trusted in the industry. Led by the Office of Ethical and Humane Use, we focused on creating guidelines and acceptable use policies to ensure responsible development and deployment of AI products in the enterprise. We introduced the Einstein Trust Layer, which lets customers benefit from generative AI without compromising their data security and privacy controls.

Salesforce is also proactively engaging with governments, industry, academia, and civil society to advance responsible, risk-based, and globally applicable AI norms. This includes advising the White House on responsible AI policies and signing the Voluntary Commitments to help advance the development of safe, secure, and trustworthy AI.

The letter also highlights the company’s philanthropic work.

I’m especially proud that we’re achieving this incredible success by staying true to our values: trust, customer success, innovation, equality and sustainability. Our values have remained our North Star, creating shared success with all of our stakeholders and multiplying the impact of our 1-1-1 philanthropic model beyond what we could’ve ever envisioned.

To date, we’ve given more than $700 million in grants and performed over 8.7 million hours of volunteer service by our employees. We’re honored to help more than 56,000 nonprofits and higher-ed institutions power their missions with our technology, and inspired that nearly 20,000 companies have adopted our 1-1-1 model to make their own impact.

Benioff’s focus on AI is another indication of just how pervasive AI is and the degree to which it is permeating the tech industry and beyond.

In this comprehensive exploration, we delve into AI’s profound impact on CRM systems and the manifold benefits it brings to businesses of all sizes and industries. From enhanced data analysis to predictive analytics and hyper-personalization, AI is revolutionizing CRM in unimaginable ways.

Enhanced Data Analysis:

One of AI’s most transformative aspects in CRM is its ability to revolutionize data analysis. AI algorithms can process vast datasets quickly, uncovering hidden patterns, correlations, and trends that might elude human analysts. By leveraging machine learning and natural language processing techniques, AI-equipped CRM systems can distill actionable insights from mountains of unstructured data, empowering businesses to make informed decisions and tailor their strategies to meet their customers’ evolving needs and preferences.

With AI-driven data analysis, businesses can better understand their customers’ behaviors, preferences, and purchasing patterns. This granular insight enables targeted marketing campaigns, personalized product recommendations, and proactive customer service interventions, which foster stronger relationships and drive long-term loyalty.

Lead Prioritization:

AI-powered CRM systems are revolutionizing lead management and prioritization in sales and marketing. By analyzing vast troves of customer data, engagement metrics, and historical interactions, AI algorithms can assign dynamic lead scores based on the likelihood of conversion and customer value. This enables sales teams to focus on high-potential leads with the highest conversion propensity, maximizing efficiency and optimizing resource allocation.

Moreover, AI-driven lead prioritization fosters greater alignment between marketing and sales teams, facilitating seamless collaboration and a more holistic approach to customer acquisition and retention. With AI as their guiding compass, sales professionals can confidently navigate complex sales cycles, armed with the insights needed to close deals and nurture relationships effectively.

Automated Tasks:

AI automation represents a paradigm shift in CRM operations, streamlining mundane and repetitive tasks to free up valuable time for sales representatives and customer service agents. From data entry and email follow-ups to appointment scheduling and lead nurturing, AI-powered bots and workflows can handle routine tasks quickly, accurately, and consistently, allowing human employees to focus on higher-value activities that require creativity, empathy, and problem-solving skills.

By offloading manual tasks to AI-driven systems, businesses can boost operational efficiency, minimize errors, and scale their operations without proportional increases in staffing costs. Moreover, AI automation ensures round-the-clock availability, enabling enterprises to deliver timely and responsive customer service across multiple channels and time zones, enhancing overall customer experience and satisfaction.

Improved Customer Service:

In customer service and support, AI-powered chatbots and virtual assistants are revolutionizing the way businesses engage with their customers. With speed and precision, these intelligent conversational agents can handle a wide range of inquiries, from basic FAQs to complex troubleshooting. By leveraging natural language understanding and machine learning algorithms, AI chatbots can interpret customer queries, provide relevant information, and even execute transactions seamlessly, all while delivering a personalized and contextually relevant experience.

Furthermore, AI-driven chatbots can escalate complex issues to human agents when necessary, ensuring a seamless transition between automated and human-assisted support channels. This hybrid approach combines the efficiency and scalability of automation with the empathy and expertise of human agents, resulting in faster resolution times, higher first-contact resolution rates, and greater overall customer satisfaction.

The Future of AI in CRM:

While AI’s current capabilities in CRM are impressive, the future holds even more tremendous promise. As AI technologies continue to advance and mature, we expect to see a proliferation of innovative applications and use cases across the CRM landscape. The possibilities are virtually limitless, from advanced chatbots with sentiment analysis capabilities to predictive analytics models that anticipate customer needs and behaviors.

One area poised for significant growth is hyper-personalization at scale. As AI algorithms become more sophisticated and data sources more abundant, businesses can tailor their interactions with customers at an unprecedented level of granularity. From personalized product recommendations and targeted marketing campaigns to bespoke service offerings and dynamic pricing strategies, AI-powered CRM systems will enable businesses to create highly individualized customer experiences that resonate on a profoundly personal level.

Another area of focus is predictive analytics, where AI will play an increasingly central role in forecasting customer behaviors and market trends. By analyzing historical data, identifying patterns, and extrapolating future trends, AI-powered predictive analytics models can help businesses anticipate customer needs, identify emerging opportunities, and mitigate potential risks, empowering proactive decision-making and strategic planning.

Moreover, as AI technologies become more accessible and affordable, we can expect to see greater democratization of AI-powered CRM solutions. Businesses of all sizes and industries will harness the power of AI to drive growth, innovation, and competitive advantage. Whether a small startup looking to gain a foothold in a crowded market or a multinational corporation seeking to optimize its global operations, AI-powered CRM systems offer a powerful toolkit for success in the digital age.

In conclusion, integrating AI into CRM systems represents a watershed moment in the evolution of customer relationship management. By leveraging the power of artificial intelligence, businesses can unlock new levels of efficiency, effectiveness, and innovation across every facet of the customer journey. From enhanced data analysis and lead prioritization to automated tasks and improved customer service, AI-driven CRM systems are revolutionizing how businesses engage with their customers, driving sales growth, enhancing customer satisfaction, and paving the way for sustained success in the digital era. As we look to the future, the possibilities are limitless, and the journey ahead promises to be nothing short of transformative.

Salesforce already sells Starter Suite, but Pro Suite is designed to give growing businesses and startups more advanced options and a “seamless growth path.” The new option includes advanced automation, customization, and integration options, as well as advanced sales and service features.

Pro Suite empowers customers to quickly and easily get started on the world’s #1 AI CRM and scale seamlessly. Unlike other point solutions, customers will never outgrow Salesforce. We have a variety of solutions — big and small — for every unique business need or industry. Salesforce customers will never have to rip and replace existing implementations to get the right-sized solution for their needs. We offer a variety of fully customizable upgrade paths from Starter and Pro Suite all the way up to our top Einstein 1 Sales Edition.

The company believes the timing is perfect to launch Pro Suite, since a recent survey shows that small businesses believe 2024 will be a critical year for their success.

“A recent survey from Slack found that 40% of small businesses believe 2024 is a ‘make or break’ year for their business — and that technology is a key focus for them,” said Kris Billmaier, SVP and GM of Salesforce Self-Service and Growth Products.

“Unlike its competitors, Salesforce has been a long-time leader in CRM and we’ve built Pro Suite on that same, extensible platform that has been the foundation of our customers’ success for 25 years,” added Kris Billmaier.

The company has priced Pro Suite at $100 per month. Interested parties can learn more here.

Scott Heimes, Chief Marketing Officer at Zipwhip, discusses how two-way text messaging can be an extremely effective way to communicate with your customers in an interview on the B2B Growth Podcast:

76% of Consumers Have Received Text From Businesses

Over 76 percent of consumers have received some kind of text from a business. The most common are appointment reminders or bank alerts. This really just scratches the surface. Texting has so many applications beyond just alerts and reminders. There are sales and marketing, discount coupons and giveaways, customer support and service, recruiting and staffing, and internal communications at places like educational institutions. It’s so new and businesses are continuing to innovate in this medium. There are a lot of powerful use cases for businesses.

We have over 30,000 businesses using our software today. They range from very small businesses like yoga studios or lawn care services all the way up to multi-billion dollar insurance companies that are using our solution in their claim call centers. Industries include financial services, staffing and recruiting, healthcare, legal, and more. We have 156 professional sports teams that use our solution. They use it for ticket sales and customer service. There are lots of fitness gyms, radio and TV stations that use our text solution as well. It really does run the gamut of anybody that wants to communicate with their customers via this preferred medium.

Report Shows Increasing Use of Texting by Businesses

I just talked to the Director of Communications for the Sound Transit Authority, the public transit authority in Seattle, who uses our solution. They publish an 800 number to text or call when people see problems on the trains. Rather than get on the phone and calling, more and more people are texting those alerts. It’s really an interesting use case. Another one is during a recent hurricane down in Houston we had an insurance agent that was using our software to communicate with all of his customers in the area because the phone lines were largely down. Texting was working well to create engagement and communication during those tough times.

We recently created a report called the State of Texting which is a deep research study that highlights the adoption curve of text messaging as a business communication tool. It identifies how many consumers are already being texted by businesses as well as many other key insights and trends. One of the things we saw was that there are a lot of one-way texting tools where you get an alert from your doctor’s office, for instance, but you can’t respond to it. It was actually fired off by a CRM using an API that was just one way.

Text is a Great Way to Increase Engagement

Increasingly, consumers would prefer to be able to respond to those texts and have an actual interaction with a human on the other side to either reschedual that appointment or alert them that they are going to be five minutes late or something like that. We are seeing a trend where people want to be able to respond to texts and have an interaction as opposed to continuing to be one way.

For businesses, the communication channels of email and phone are just becoming less and less effective. Text is a great way to increase your engagement and responsiveness with consumers. They’ll actually respond to a text. One of the things we are doing as a company is everything we can to maintain the purity of the texting medium to make sure that spam doesn’t leak its way into this channel.

>> Listen to the complete interview with Zipwhip CMO Scott Heimes on the B2B Growth podcast.

Spiff will join Sales Cloud following the acquisition. Salesforce says Spiff’s addition will help CROs to better work with financial and sales operations teams.

“CROs and financial leaders know the importance of compensation in driving rep behavior. The challenge these leaders face is in how to align these compensation plans to desired outcomes – all while navigating data across siloed-point solutions,” says Ketan Karkhanis, EVP & GM, Sales Cloud. “Spiff connects what sellers want – transparent compensation – with what sales leaders want – compensation planning built into CRM that aligns behaviors to strategic outcomes.”

“I’m excited about the future of Spiff and about what this means for the world of SPM and ICM in general,” says Jeron Paul, CEO of Spiff. “We have always taken pride in Spiff’s pace of innovation and I’m grateful for the opportunity to make an even deeper impact on the space as part of the Salesforce ecosystem.”

The terms of the deal were not disclosed, although the deal is expected to close in the Q1 of Salesforce’s fiscal year 2025.

Aongus Hegarty, President of International Markets at Dell Technologies, says that the CIO role is now core to the business strategy in the enterprise. Hegarty was interviewed by Tim Crawford, ranked as one of the most influential CIOs and is the CIO Strategic Advisor at AVOA:

The CIO Is Now Central To The Business Strategy

If you stand back and look at the CIO role I think it’s gone from being a role traditionally which was very much in the back office. The CIO was focused on keeping the systems working and maybe often only out in the c-suite discussions when there was a challenge or an issue with systems or email, etc. The CIO now has become front and center and central to the business strategy. From the c-suite perspective, they are now seen as a key individual around investment in technology to enable the business from a growth and transformation point of view. There has been fundamental change.

What’s driving the change is the recognition by CEOs, c-suite, and companies that technology is disrupting industries and disrupting businesses. It’s driving significant efficiency and operational enhancement and/or a brand new set of business models, products, and services enabled by technology. Companies need to quickly move forward around their digital transformation or they will be left behind or significantly disadvantaged quite quickly. There’s an urgency in the c-suite to bring the technology strategy front and center underpinning the business strategy.

The CIO: A Critical Role Now And Into The Future

The CIO within that c-suite is in an absolutely critical role now and into the future. The breadth of skills and competencies required has broadened significantly. Now the CIO role very much encompasses an individual who has vision and collaborates across the organization. The CIO has strong communication skills and ability and can work and navigate between obviously the tactical and executional elements of the role but also the strategic elements of the IT strategy. They they must match that and understand how it fits into the business strategy. 

To all the CIOs out there I think it’s absolutely an exciting time and a great opportunity. You can be sure that Dell Technologies will be there every step of the way with you.

Salesforce has been pivoting to AI, leveraging it to augment its CRM offerings, and slowly becoming an AI powerhouse in the process. The company is building on its Salesforce Data Cloud and Einstein AI with the announcement of its Einstein 1 Platform.

“A company’s AI strategy is only as good as its data strategy,” said Parker Harris, Co-Founder and CTO, Salesforce. “We pioneered the metadata framework nearly 25 years ago to seamlessly bridge data across applications. It’s the connective tissue that fuels innovation. Now, with Data Cloud and Einstein AI native on the Einstein 1 Platform, companies can easily create AI-powered apps and workflows that supercharge productivity, reduce costs, and deliver amazing customer experiences.”

The company says organizations’ data is increasingly fragmented across across platforms. Einstein is designed to help companies get the most of their data, connecting with any data to help companies create “data-driven AI applications.”

Data Cloud – Salesforce’s real-time hyperscale data engine – unifies and harmonizes customer data, enterprise content, telemetry data, Slack conversations, and other structured and unstructured data to create a single view of the customer. The platform is already processing 30 trillion transactions per month, and connecting and unifying 100 billion records every day.

With the new Data Cloud now natively integrated with the Einstein 1 Platform, companies can unlock siloed data in entirely new ways; create rich, unified customer profiles; and deliver entirely new CRM experiences.

AI played a large role in Saleforce beating analysts’ expectations in its most recent quarterly results. It appears the company has no intention of slowing down as it further embraces the tech.

Salesforce may not be the first company many think of when it comes to AI, but the company has been steadily building a strong presence in the market, billing itself as “the #1 AI CRM.”

The company released its quarterly results, with AI helping it surge past expectations.

• Quarterly revenue came in at $8.6 billion, an 11% increase year-over-year.
• Earnings per Share came in at $2.12, beating estimates of $1.90.
• Operating margin was 31.6%, beating estimates of 28.2%.
• Free cash flow was $630 million, up 379% year-over-year.

“Our transformation drove our strong second quarter results, delivering revenue of $8.6 billion and record GAAP and non-GAAP operating margins,” said Marc Benioff, Chair and CEO of Salesforce. “Based on our performance and what we see in the back half of the year, we’re raising our fiscal year ‘24 revenue, operating margin, and operating cash flow growth guidance. As the #1 AI CRM, with industry-leading clouds, Einstein, Data Cloud, MuleSoft, Slack and Tableau, all integrated on one trusted, unified platform, we’re leading our customers into the new AI era.”

“We continue to execute against our profitable growth framework, delivering 17.2% GAAP operating margin and 31.6% non-GAAP operating margin — exceeding our target three quarters early,” said Amy Weaver, President and CFO of Salesforce. “We are accelerating our transformation and continue to drive strong shareholder value.”

Salesforce is the leading CRM provider and increasingly a major player in the cloud computing market. In addition to the company’s own services, it also owns and operates business insight firm Tableau, as well as Slack.

According to the company, it will be raising prices across a number of services:

In August, Salesforce will be increasing list prices an average of 9% across Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Industries and Tableau. Salesforce’s last list price increase was seven years ago, and since then the company has delivered 22 new releases, thousands of new features—including recent generative AI innovations—and invested more than $20 billion in research and development.

Salesforce highlights some of the investments it has been making, investments it is no doubt hoping to offset with the price hike:

Customer success is at the core of Salesforce. Nearly every company in the world right now is exploring how generative AI can help drive efficiency and productivity for their business. Salesforce is leading the way on delivering trusted generative AI for the enterprise and helping customers in all industries adopt and deploy AI. In just the last few months alone, Salesforce has introduced AI Cloud, Einstein GPT, Sales GPT and Service GPT, and more.

AI is upending countless industries, but the field is still very much the Wild West in terms of regulation, policies, and trust factors. Salesforce is trying to position itself as the platform of choice for companies that want to deploy generative AI in a trusted and open manner.

The company’s Einstein, the first AI for CRM, forms the foundation of AI Cloud with a new Einstein GPT Trust Layer. The new layer helps enterprise customers integrate generative AI in a way that is compatible with their security and risk policies.

AI Cloud will help fill that trust gap with the new Einstein GPT Trust Layer. The Einstein GPT Trust Layer will help prevent large-language models (LLMs) from retaining sensitive customer data. This separation of sensitive data from the LLM will help customers maintain data governance controls while still leveraging the immense potential of generative AI. The Einstein GPT Trust Layer sets a new industry standard for secure generative AI for the enterprise.

“AI is reshaping our world and transforming business in ways we never imagined, and every company needs to become AI-first,” said Marc Benioff, Chair and CEO, Salesforce. “AI Cloud, built on the #1 CRM, is the fastest and easiest way for our customers to unleash the incredible power of AI, with trust at the center driven by our new Einstein GPT Trust Layer. AI Cloud will unlock incredible innovation, productivity, and efficiency for every company.”

In addition to the usual capabilities, such as helping streamline customer interaction, providing insights, and more, AI Cloud will allow customers to work with the large-language model (LLM) of their choice. AI Cloud will support Salesforce’s LLM, third-party LLMs, or allow customers to bring their own custom one.

“Embedding AI into our CRM has delivered huge operational efficiencies for our advisors and clients,” said Greg Beltzer, Head of Tech for RBC US Wealth Management. “We believe that this technology has the potential to transform the way businesses interact with their customers, deliver personalized experiences, and drive customer loyalty. We are excited to explore this opportunity with Salesforce and drive the next generation of personalized customer experiences.”

Salesforce’s first-quarter revenue came in at $8.25 billion, beating analysts’ expectations of $8.18 billion. The company’s adjusted earnings-per-share came in at $1.69, beating expectations of $1.61.

Revenue was 11% higher than the year-ago quarter, with executives emphasizing the company’s strong performance in their statements.

“Salesforce significantly exceeded our non-GAAP margin target for the quarter — up 1,000 basis points year-over-year, and we are raising our FY24 non-GAAP operating margin guidance to a 550 basis point increase year-over-year,” said Marc Benioff, Chair and CEO of Salesforce. “At the same time, we are leading the next major revolution in CRM — infusing trusted, secure generative AI across our entire product portfolio. Salesforce’s generative AI ecosystem wields Einstein GPT, Slack GPT, and Tableau GPT, delivering trusted power across our product portfolio. Our Salesforce GPT Trust Layer will shield customer data, enabling productive automation and intelligent enterprise enhancements securely.”

Despite Salesforce’s strong performance, there is more to the results than meets the eye. According to Reuters, Salesforce’s growth in the first quarter was its slowest growth rate since 2010.

There are a number of factors dragging down Salesforce’s growth, including the economy in general, as well as increased competition from legacy vendors that have the customer base and deep pockets necessary to make inroads into Salesforce’s market.

Understanding the client

For the growth of the business and to stay ahead of the competition, it is important to not only know your clients, but to understand them. Understanding the preferences, needs and desires can be the building or breaking of a business and long term relationships is what you are looking for. Having an operation management system like Planfix can do just that.  

Client relationship management software or CRM in short, helps companies analyze data. This data comes from client interactions and can narrow down consumer preferences. With this information at hand you can understand trends and product or service offerings that might help you steer your company in the direction where growth is imminent.       

Building Relationships with clients

It is important to interact with clients in an individual manner, it doesn’t help sending out a general info brochure that is meant for everyone. It should be specific to that person’s needs and wants, you should know the trends and then personalize for specifics. Bombarding your clients with general hogwash is not going to get them to buy or use your service, but if it’s something that an individual is interested in, now that changes everything. 

Client segmentation is an important part of a successful marketing strategy. CRM software, an excellent example of it is Planfix, helps businesses divide clients into sections based on various factors, including demographics, behavior, preferences, and more. All these factors can support your business and decision making becomes easier with streamlined functionality.

Streamlining Sales Processes

To use the CRM software for sales pipeline management is not only a nice to have, but a must for every business aiming for huge growth. This operation management system software helps sales teams manage the leads from start to finish and also provides high accuracy insight into performance or improvement areas for your business. 

The CRM software provides for follow up processing to maintain strong relationships with clients. The processes analyze data, track client interactions and automate communication to make it more personal for each client in a timely manner. 

Upselling and Cross-selling

The use of forecasting with CRM software can help businesses predict sales and increase revenue by analyzing data and trends from client interactions. Teams can make informed decisions when developing strategies and direction for upselling and cross-selling. Targeted promotions and well devised marketing campaigns are now much easier to achieve with CRM software doing most of the work. 

Collaborating with Teams and Partners

Integrating CRM software with other applications can streamline business processes in a functional and positive way. If for instance used with marketing automation software, the process can help automate lead nurturing and improve sales conversions. This can lead to increased efficiency, improved coordination and more detailed relationships with partners and clients. The use of CRM software can give you valuable insights into interactions and help identify where improvement is needed.

It is of utmost importance to have effective communication and collaboration with partners and teams for success when making sales. The software can track accountability ensuring that all parties involved hold up their part, all are held responsible for their own actions and contributions to the overall success of the business.

Tracking and Analyzing Sales Data

CRM software is a powerful tool used for sales performance improvement and client engagement. It has advanced features like lead tracking, sales forecasting and performance analytics and are only an advantage to your business. 

The importance of tracking metrics and KPIs is a necessary part for any high-end business for ultimate performance by helping in achieving their goals. This is done by regular monitoring to identify areas of improvement and ultimately you can make data driven decisions to keep performance up. 

By analyzing client behavior concerning purchase patterns, businesses can optimize sales revenue by implementing target marketing strategies and adjusting to find new opportunities for upselling and cross-selling. 

Conclusion

In conclusion, making use of CRM software can be one of the best decisions you make for your bottom line. With the world of technology at your fingertips and the massive benefits that follow CRM software, you are bound to see the result in an increase in sales and revenue. With successful implementation of CRM technology like Planfix, there will be a notable difference and a return on investment can be seen soon after implementation. 

Favicons are those little icons that show up in browser tabs when visiting certain websites. They’re a way for websites to add a little more branding, but many users find them annoying and distracting. What’s more, browser favicons have been exposed as a privacy risk, allowing bad actors to track users’ activity.

Evidently, Google still believes favicons may have a place in advertising, and is testing their inclusion, according to a tweet by Google’s AdsLiason account.

This is part of a series of small experiments to help users more easily identify the brand or advertiser associated with the Search ads they may see for a given query.

AdsLiason (@adsliason), January 24, 2022

There’s no indication when Google will make a final decision.

Rob Locascio, CEO of LivePerson, predicts that the AI-driven conversational space will ultimately have as much impact and be as big an industry as ecommerce, search, or social. Locascio was interviewed by Jim Cramer on CNBC:

Ecommerce, Search, Social… and Conversational Space?

When I look at the conversational space I think it’s going to have as much impact as ecommerce or search or social. The ability to talk to a machine and have a natural conversation, it’s in the collective consciousness of people. We all believe the Alexa type situation should happen with every company. 

We do that with Delta and T-Mobile and all these big brands. What we’re looking at now is how do we take that to the world? LiveIntent is proprietary technology to look at the intent that a consumer is having with the brand. In terms of I want to buy something, we have a way to analyze that and then use machine learning algorithms to then scale those conversations. That’s what this is about. 

Healthcare Companies Defending Themselves From Amazon Via AI

In Q4 we signed a couple healthcare companies. They want to talk about defending themselves from Amazon because Amazon said they want to go into healthcare. The way they think they can do that is scaling the conversations they are having with their customers and creating a totally different experience. You go to a doctor, you have an experience with them, you capture that on a messaging platform and an AI will help you with whatever is wrong with you. You want to process a bill instead of calling and being put on hold, you do that through a conversational experience. 

They want to game change it. The only way they’re going to defend themselves is to get into the conversational space. That’s what they see and we’re the company they’re trusting to scale their operations with the conversational platform.

Conversational Space Is Going To Be As Big As Search and Social

The conversational space is going to be as big as search and social. I think you’ll see one day that there will be a trillion dollar company in this space and I want it to be us. The things we’re investing in right now and setting up for will allow us to do that. That’s what’s important. The Amazon’s and the Facebook’s and Apple’s, they’re in the space. Jeff Bezos made a big bet obviously in Alexa to say this is the way it’s going to be. 

It can’t just be Amazon and Alexa. It has to be other companies getting access to that technology and that’s what we are providing. Who else is providing it? We’re one of the largest companies in the world to do this. Even though we’re not big tech, we are large enough to go ahead and go after them. We are large enough to go ahead and define a space and win it.

According to SF Gate, SAP plans to open a “30,000-square-foot office in SoMa on Thursday.” The new office space will house 500 of the company’s 3,500 Bay Area employees.

“San Francisco is the capital of the tech industry and one of the top global markets for talent,” said Yaad Oren, the managing director of SAP Labs US. “It is a vital region. SAP is doubling down on our commitment to this epicenter of innovation with our newest office and this next-generation approach to work.”

“We’re helping deliver the promise of an intelligent, sustainable enterprise with our customers by nourishing relationships with the top technology firms associated with the Silicon Valley,” Oren added.

The announcement is a welcome one for San Francisco as a number of companies have closed or sub-leased their offices in the wake of the pandemic. As more employees have adopted remote and hybrid work, there’s no longer the demand for office space that there once was.

SAP’s investment in San Francisco could well spur other companies to return.

The US and its allies have cut off Huawei from a wide range of software and hardware over national security and privacy concerns. The bans have had a significant impact on the company’s business, including on its access to the internal software it needs to function.

According to the company’s news release, its new “MetaERP currently handles 100% of Huawei’s business scenarios and 80% of its business volume.” The company says that “MetaERP has already passed the tests of monthly, quarterly, and yearly settlements, while ensuring zero faults, zero delays, and zero accounting adjustments.”

“We were cut off from our old ERP system and other core operation and management systems more than three years ago,” said Tao Jingwen, Huawei’s Board Member and President of the Quality, Business Process & IT Mgmt Dept. “Since then, we have not only been able to build our own MetaERP, but also manage the switch and prove its capabilities. Today we are proud to announce that we have broken through the blockade. We have survived!”

The company says it worked with partner companies to ensure MetaERP supports “advanced technologies, such as cloud-native architecture, metadata-driven multi-tenant architecture, and real-time intelligence.” The company plans to continue creating additional critical business systems that it has control over rather than risking being cut off from additional software it relies on.

“Leaps in technology take a spirit of craftsmanship and years of experience,” said Sabrina Meng, Huawei’s Rotating Chairwoman and CFO. “More importantly, it takes an open mind to drive leaps in the way we think. We wouldn’t have been able to build MetaERP without the support of our partners. Innovation is only possible with an open mind, and thriving is only possible when we work together.”

The announcement comes after Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei called for the company to focus more on software development, saying it was “outside of U.S. control and we will have greater independence and autonomy.”

Microsoft unveiled Viva Sales in mid-2022, touting it as “a new seller experience application.” The app is designed to work with various CRMs and integrate their data with Microsoft’s suite of apps.

The company is now integrating ChatGPT into Viva Sales so salespeople can use the AI to write emails for them. According to Bloomberg, the software “will cull data from customer records and Office email software. That information will then be used to generate emails containing personalized text, pricing details and promotions.”

Microsoft is investing heavily in ChatGPT and its creator, OpenAI. The company is planning to unveil a version of Bing that utilizes a new and improved version, and has invested billions in OpenAI.

The company clearly sees potential for ChatGPT to help it in its efforts to take on Salesforce’s dominance in the CRM market.

On the heels of an announcement by Microsoft that it was releasing Dynamics 365, the world’s first ERP/CRM copilot, Salesforce has fired back with Einstein GPT. The company describes it as “the world’s first generative AI CRM technology, which delivers AI-created content across every sales, service, marketing, commerce, and IT interaction, at hyperscale.”

Salesforce says Einstein GPT will help transform the entire customer experience, thanks to generative AI.

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, harmonizes, and unifies all of a company’s customer data. With Einstein GPT, customers can then 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.

“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 personalized ways,” said 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.”

Sales personnel will be able to use Einstein GPT to generate personalized emails to customers, while service personnel will be able to use the tech to generate articles based on case notes, as well as auto-generate personalized interaction with customers.

Slack will also see Einstein GTP integration, giving users the ability to see in-depth insights.

Marketing personnel will be able to use Einstein GPT to generate personalized content and engage with customers across mobile, email, web, and advertising.

Even developers can get in on the action, using the technology to help generate code.

“We’re excited to apply the power of OpenAI’s technology to CRM,” said 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.”

The company touts Dynamic 365 Copilot as “the world’s first copilot in both CRM and ERP that brings next-generation AI to every line of business.” Microsoft has already begun rolling out next-gen AI in its Bing search engine and is now looking to improve the CRM and ERP experience using the new tech.

In particular, Microsoft wants to help CRM/ERP customers to reduce the daily monotony of necessary tasks, such as notetaking, data entry, and content generation. For example, in Dynamics 365 Sales and Viva Sales, AI can help users write email responses and even create email summaries of Teams meetings. Similarly, in Dynamics 365 Customer Service, AI can generate answers based on chats and email and customers will soon be able to build virtual agents in minutes for their unique needs.

In Dynamics 365 Customer Insights and Dynamics 365 Marketing, AI can help personnel better understand their customer segments, even receiving insights, suggestions, and recommendations they otherwise may have missed.

“The next era of business applications is being transformed by generative AI,” writes Charles Lamanna, CVP, Business Applications and Platform. “Users will increasingly expect their CRM and ERP applications to include AI-powered expertise. Dynamics 365 Copilot brings the latest AI breakthroughs to every line of business, improving customer experience, employee experience and operational efficiency. Essential to our approach as we bring these latest advancements to customers is our commitment to responsible AI by design – our framework for the safe deployment of AI technologies.

“Today’s announcement builds on recent AI momentum across Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365, and the Power Platform. This includes: the next generation of AI capabilities in Microsoft Teams, the collaboration platform for work with more than 280 million monthly active users; Viva Sales, which helps sellers by bringing a sales copilot to their flow of work in Microsoft 365; and Power Apps, enabling citizen developers to write code using natural language.”

Microsoft unveiled Viva Sales in mid-2022, touting it as “a new seller experience application.” The app is designed to work with various CRMs and integrate their data with Microsoft’s suite of apps.

The company is now integrating ChatGPT into Viva Sales so salespeople can use the AI to write emails for them. According to Bloomberg, the software “will cull data from customer records and Office email software. That information will then be used to generate emails containing personalized text, pricing details and promotions.”

Microsoft is investing heavily in ChatGPT and its creator, OpenAI. The company is planning to unveil a version of Bing that utilizes a new and improved version, and has invested billions in OpenAI.

The company clearly sees potential for ChatGPT to help it in its efforts to take on Salesforce’s dominance in the CRM market.