Salesforce adds GPT to Commerce and Marketing clouds
The CRM giant adds generative AI capabilities and an expanded Google partnership to help marketers bring personalized content to customers and improve CX.
Salesforce on Wednesday unveiled generative AI capabilities to improve CX personalization.
Marketing GPT and Commerce GPT incorporate real-time data from Salesforce Data Cloud to automate content that is specific to each customer.
The vendor revealed the new tools to audiences at Connections, its annual conference for sales and marketing professionals being held in person in Chicago and virtually this week.
Under the expanded partnership, businesses will be able to connect customer data with their own AI models to better anticipate customer needs and simplify data synchronization across platforms.
The partnership includes a new integration between Salesforce Data Cloud and Google BigQuery, which will let companies unify data across the platforms to create more comprehensive customer profiles. Another new integration between Salesforce Data Cloud and Google Cloud's Vertex AI managed machine learning platform will let companies use their own AI models in Salesforce.
This is about making data simpler, or at least easier and far less expensive and onerous to move or copy.
Liz MillerAnalyst, Constellation Research
"This is about making data simpler, or at least easier and far less expensive and onerous to move or copy," Constellation Research analyst Liz Miller said.
The Data Cloud and Vertex AI integration will be in pilot in mid-2023 and generally available by the end of the year, according to Salesforce. The Data Cloud and BigQuery integration will be in pilot in late 2023 and generally available in early 2024.
More GPT for the cloud
By adding Marketing GPT and Commerce GPT to its portfolio, Salesforce is rounding out its generative AI offerings for its major cloud products, including Salesforce Data Cloud, said Gartner analyst Kyle Davis.
"Most of the Marketing GPT and Commerce GPT features help Salesforce users with content creation, enrichment and process improvement," he said.
In Commerce GPT, the new Commerce Concierge generative AI assistant aids online shoppers, showing how generative AI is spilling over from internal operations to direct customer service.
"Generative AI features that improve UX are visible to consumers and can replace other failing or aging AI implementations, such as chatbots," Davis said.
Another new Commerce GPT capability is Goals-Based Commerce, which provides actionable insights and suggestions based on businesses' input targets and goals. From there, teams can rely on data, workflows and AI to better understand which strategies are most successful, according to Miller.
"This is about getting both specific and prescriptive -- inputting solid business goals like growing margin, volume or even value, and then automating and optimizing without pain," Miller said.
Observers have been anticipating such a tool from Salesforce for a few years, she noted. "These are the tools both the business and Salesforce user need to have as economic headwinds threaten to slow growth," Miller said.
Commerce Concierge will be in pilot in October 2023 and generally available in February 2024, Salesforce said. Goals-Based Commerce will be in pilot in October 2023 and generally available in February 2024.
Salesforce's Commerce Concierge generative AI assistant helps online shoppers identify and learn more about specific products.
Aiming to keep AI safe
New large language model and generative AI tools are spreading pervasively in the CRM market, but Salesforce puts an added emphasis on trust with its Office of Ethical and Humane Use of Technology's focus on customer safety, according to Valoir analyst Rebecca Wettemann.
"Guardrails are in place to ensure AI is used properly, showing the thoughtful approach Salesforce is taking," she said.
Plus, Salesforce customers can securely use their own Salesforce data with Einstein GPT to bring more relevant model training and cater to a vendor's specific customers, Wettemann said.
Mary Reines is a news writer covering customer experience and unified communications for TechTarget Editorial. Before TechTarget, Reines was arts editor at the Marblehead Reporter.
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