Dive Brief:
- Salesforce is doubling down on integrating AI into its CRM as it sees a surge in interest in Einstein GPT, Salesforce’s generative AI solution.
- “I mean, now, Einstein with predictive and generative combined, is doing 1 trillion transactions a week,” said Marc Benioff, chair and CEO of Salesforce, on a Q3 earnings call Wednesday. “But more amazing is that 17% of the Fortune 100 are now Einstein GPT Copilot customers. And this is a product that is just coming to market.”
- Salesforce is by far the leading provider of CRMs, with 23% of the global market share as of the end of 2022, according to the International Data Corporation. Now, with the booming popularity of Einstein GPT, Salesforce is leading the way in implementing AI in CRMs.
Dive Insight:
Since the advent of ChatGPT, CRM providers have raced to add generative AI capabilities. In March, Salesforce deployed Einstein GPT, its generative AI solution enabling businesses to connect their real-time data with OpenAI’s advanced AI models, in its Salesforce Customer 360 CRM.
Now, Benioff says Salesforce boasts "the No. 1 AI CRM."
Benioff touted the growth of Einstein GPT Copilot on the earnings call, noting that “this is a product we didn't really even have an imagination of around a year ago.”
During Cyber Week, Salesforce’s Commerce Cloud powered nearly 50 million orders on digital storefronts with 100% uptime, the company said.
“Einstein powered more than 49 billion product recommendations and over 53 billion marketing messages were sent via the Marketing Cloud. In addition, Service Cloud helped our customers field and resolve 3.7 billion cases,” Benioff said.
Key to Salesforce’s AI push is Data Cloud, Salesforce’s real-time customer data platform, which saw surging adoption.
In Q3 alone, Data Cloud took in 6.4 trillion records — an 140% year-over-year increase, according to Benioff. “It triggered 1.4 trillion activations, a 220% increase year-over-year. This is a monster product.”
Salesforce ended the quarter with $8.7 billion in revenue, up 11% year-over-year. Salesforce’s service business made up the biggest portion of revenue, some $2.07 billion.
Salesforce’s positive earnings report comes the same week it announced a partnership with Amazon Web Services to enable customers to manage their data and integrate AI technologies across both platforms. AWS is also pursuing generative AI solutions, just this week announcing that it's deploying its AI-powered chatbot Q into its call center technology.
