CRM leader Salesforce has announced a new AI-powered research agent designed to help salespeople close deals more quickly.
Einstein Relationship Insights autonomously explores both internal and internet-based data sources in order to uncover relationships between existing customers, prospects and companies. Salesforce said the solution acts as a virtual sales agent, capable of scanning websites, social media, apps and emails to then recommend related individuals and companies.
Augmenting Human Workers with AI
Instead of replacing human workers, Salesforce said Einstein Relationship Insights was about augmenting salespeople – improving their efficiency and automating tedious manual research.
According to Harvard Business Review, AI increases leads and appointments by over 50%, while reducing costs by up to 60%.
“Salespeople should be able to focus on the areas that matter most, like high-touch online or in-person customer interactions, and leverage technology as an assistant to handle the manual task of searching for relevant insights,” said Jason Briggs, Senior Director of Product Management, Einstein Relationship Insights. “ERI can do this at a pace and scale that is impossible for any human to do. This is a glimpse into the future of how humans will successfully work in tandem with AI.”
The company said the solution would be generally available this month, featuring a browser extension to animate and highlight key information, and CRM integration to easily update contact records.
In the financial services space, Salesforce’s Einstein Relationship Insights allows for relationship discovery, using AI to highlight people and companies in text and showing relevant connections and averting the need for cold calling.
“Bankers are asking for new ways to deepen relationships with clients, facilitate warm introductions, and develop new business through data-driven client insights,” said Jujhar Singh, EVP and GM of Salesforce Industries.
“With Corporate and Investment Banking for Financial Services Cloud, we’re providing bankers with new ways to build and deepen relationships with customers and manage key accounts by leveraging artificial intelligence. With these new innovations from Salesforce, bankers can spend their time as trusted advisors for their clients by accelerating deal pipelines and better managing sensitive information to ensure they remain compliant through every step of the deal.”
