Salesforce readies Einstein Copilot to unleash generative AI across its offerings

Einstein Copilot

After its initial tentative forays with Einstein GPT, adding limited generative AI features here and there in some of its applications, Salesforce is getting ready to go big with Einstein Copilot, a conversational AI assistant that will appear in the right-hand rail of every Salesforce application. Some of the new features are in pilot trials now, and others will be later this year.

“It’s going to be an open-ended assistant that employees and customers can simply chat with in natural language,” Shih said.

But more than that, Copilot will also be able to trigger specific Salesforce workflows.

Using Copilot Studio, enterprises will be able to control which workflows they want Copilot to have access to, linking to specific database fields they have in Data Cloud. They’ll also be able to customize the behind-the-scenes prompts that drive those workflows, personalizing them to their brand’s voice, Shih said.

Salesforce isn’t the first to come up with the idea of using generative AI to build a virtual coworker or copilot. What sets it apart, according to Stokes, is that, “Some competitors are going after productivity; we’re really going after the core customer workflows, sales, service, commerce, and marketing, where you have a direct interaction with your customer, because that’s our mission.”

Using Salesforce’s Copilot offers several advantages compared to using stand-alone generative AI tools, according to Shih. “Think about change management,” she said. “There’s no training required. You just talk to the assistant like a coworker, and the assistant will ask you if it needs clarification.” The alternative, having employees swivel to a different screen to use a generative bot, and then copy and paste, is not data secure, and is also a hurdle to adoption, she said.

Despite these advances, Einstein Copilot still won’t make you a coffee — but if your coffee machine has an API you can access from the Copilot Studio, you might be able to teach it.

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AndyC

Andy Curtis is an award-winning security consultant, researcher and public speaker. He has been working in the computer security industry since the early 1990s, having been employed by state and federal government, leading healthcare and banking providers across three continents. He has given talks about computer security for some of the world’s largest companies, worked with law enforcement agencies on investigations into hacking groups, and is a regular voice on TV and radio explaining IT security threats.

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