From the relaunch of one of the most prominent CX platforms to the resurgence of a CCaaS stalwart, here are some extracts from our most popular news stories over the last seven days.
Salesforce Debuts Einstein 1 Copilot, an AI Assistant That Covers All of Its Apps
Already at Dreamforce 2023, Salesforce has announced Einstein 1, the next generation of its Salesforce Platform.
The enterprise tech giant has now followed this up by launching Einstein 1 Copilot.
Einstein 1 Copilot is a GenAI-fueled conversational assistant, soon to be available in every Salesforce application.
As employees use those apps, they can engage with Copilot to complete various workflows and ask questions in natural language.
The answers come from company insights stored in Salesforce Data Cloud.
Introducing Einstein 1 Copilot in a media briefing, Clara Shih, CEO of Salesforce AI, stated:
Our customers have told us: “We love having these generative AI features in the flow of work, we love that they’re turnkey, and how innovations like Chat Reply Recommendations just show up.” But our customers have also told us they want more. That is why we are releasing Einstein 1 Copilot.
“Einstein 1 Copilot – a conversational AI assistant for both a company’s employees and their customers to safely and securely access generative AI. To do their jobs better, faster, and more easily.”
Copilot also incorporates the Einstein GPT features Salesforce announced in March.
For instance, Copilot may recommend a post-sales call action plan in Sales Cloud or auto-generate a new contact center knowledge article in Service Cloud. (Read on…).
Salesforce Announces Einstein 1 as Its Core Platform, Offers Data Cloud & Tableau for Free
Salesforce has teased the Einstein 1 Platform, a relaunch of its Salesforce Platform.
The solution – given the tagline: “A Trusted AI Platform for Customer Companies” – houses all of the vendor’s CRM apps, Data Cloud, Einstein apps, and more – as per the screenshot above.
When introducing the platform at a press conference, Patrick Stokes, EVP of Product and Industries Marketing at Salesforce, stated:
[This is] one platform where you can build all of your customer experience in one place, with all of the data and AI you need.
Alongside this, Stokes promised an integrated, intelligent, and automated platform.
The EVP also revealed that the platform will – like the Salesforce Platform – remain low-code.
Yet, perhaps most crucially, it will be an open platform that supports many data, LLM, and independent software vendors. Stokes continued:
We have our AppExchange enabling ISVs to extend the platform, Mulesoft enabling you to connect to outside (legacy) vendors, and – of course – we have a suite of productivity and additional developer tools, from Slack to Canva.
All this helps Salesforce as it strives to provide one platform that allows customers to pull all their data together.
Ordinarily, these projects involve many applications, building data lakes, and fusing disconnected APIs from many vendors. That had stalled transformation projects.
As Einstein 1 is an open platform, Salesforce aims to overcome such issues. Yet, it may also do so, thanks to its broad metadata framework.
The framework ensures that when a business puts data into Salesforce, it shows up everywhere. It also allows the CRM leader to upgrade its platform without breaking existing implementations. (Read on…).
Avaya Claims Positive Business Momentum, Sustains Deep Legacy Customer Base
Avaya has claimed positive market momentum as the vendor clings on to its deep customer base.
Fears ran rife that these customers would turn their backs on the brand following its second skirmish with bankruptcy.
Yet, much of its customer base remained remarkably loyal throughout its financial woes.
Indeed, new figures from Avaya show that six million contact center agents still leverage its solutions alongside 90 million UC seats.
Some of those customers include 90 percent of the largest US companies – alongside the top ten global airlines, auto manufacturers, and banks.
However, most surprisingly, the brand is winning considerable new business.
Indeed, the vendor added 599 new logos last quarter, with 39 seven-digit deals and four worth more than $5MN.
“We set the foundation for growth and have already seen our focus pay off,” concluded Alan Masarek, CEO of Avaya.
The revitalized Avaya is investing in and delivering next-gen technology with an ‘innovation without disruption’ approach embraced by customers and attracting the best talent as a destination place to work.
That “revitalized” Avaya has refused to get caught up in the swirl of success stories from market rivals, poaching from its legacy base.
Instead, the vendor is staying customer-focused and doubling-down on where prospects are showing interest. As per the repetition of this “innovation without disruption” mantra, that interest seems to be focused on a more pragmatic, cautious approach to CCaaS migrations.
Recognizing this, Avaya is channeling much of its efforts into presenting itself as the “evolution, not revolution” vendor. (Read on…).
AI Galore! HubSpot Releases New Solutions at INBOUND 2023
HubSpot has released HubSpot AI and a new Sales Hub, which enable customer service automation, future sales projections, daily task centralization, and lead prioritization.
Two feature highlights of these offerings are AI Forecasting and AI Agents. AI Forecasting improves the accuracy of future sales projections by connecting with HubSpot’s predictive AI and historical sales tool, while AI Agents assist with customer service automation and communication in chat and email.
The CRM vendor, HubSpot, unveiled the capabilities at its annual conference and product showcase, INBOUND 2023.
Yamini Rangan, CEO of HubSpot, gave his reaction to the launch of Hubspot’s new AI capabilities: “We are experiencing a transformative shift with generative AI.
Customer expectations are changing, and businesses now have the opportunity to leverage AI to drive customer connection at scale.
“HubSpot has been thinking deeply about these changes and iterating quickly to help our customers thrive in the age of intelligence.
“We introduced many powerful new features and capabilities at INBOUND 2023, and I’m excited by our progress in becoming the #1 customer platform for scaling companies.” (Read on…).
