May 4, 2023
Salesforce and Accenture Collaborate to Help Customers Harness the Transformative Power of Generative AI
With decades of expertise in AI, data, and CRM, long-time partners Salesforce and Accenture plan to create an acceleration hub for generative AI
NEW YORK; May 4, 2023 –Today at World Tour NYC, Salesforce, the global leader in CRM, announced plans to collaborate with Accenture to accelerate the deployment of generative AI for CRM. Together, the companies intend to establish a hub for generative AI that provides organizations with the technology and experience they need to scale Einstein GPT—Salesforce’s generative AI for CRM—helping to increase employee productivity and transform customer experiences.
The powerful combination of Salesforce and Accenture’s AI and industry knowledge and connected customer experience aims to provide companies across every industry with strategies and technologies that harness generative AI effectively.
“Generative AI has enormous potential to transform the way companies interact with customers and drive business growth,” said Bill Patterson, EVP and general manager, C360 Applications, Salesforce. “Accenture and Salesforce together have years of experience in AI and play a critical role in ensuring customers get the most value from this technology. We want to come together to bring the visionary and technical expertise needed to unlock new possibilities for AI- and data-powered CRM, driving a profound transformation in customer interactions.”
Emma McGuigan, senior managing director and Enterprise & Industry Technologies lead at Accenture, added, “Generative AI has the potential to transform work and reinvent business, with large language models impacting up to 40% of all working hours across industries, changing the way companies interact with their customers and ushering in a new era of generative AI for everyone. Companies need the infrastructure and knowledge to deploy this new technology to help address their unique business needs. By combining Accenture’s industry experience with Salesforce’s technology, we plan to be well positioned to help customers solve problems with generative AI faster and more effectively.”
When deployed effectively, generative AI has the power to transform how companies do business and free employees’ time to focus on more complex and creative work. According to recent Salesforce research, most senior IT leaders (84%) say generative AI will help their organization better serve customers. And with 67% of these leaders prioritizing generative AI for their business within the next 18 months, there is an urgent need to ensure the new technology is deployed effectively.
By connecting to Accenture’s Generative AI and Large Language Model (LLM) Center of Excellence, the new acceleration hub will facilitate:
- Custom AI Strategies and Accelerators for Growth: Senior leaders from Salesforce and Accenture plan to work with customers to develop customized AI strategies using new accelerators for Einstein GPT, user interfaces, and process automation, which can help increase productivity and profit for their businesses.
- Innovative Use Cases for Sales and Service: These use cases will showcase generative AI’s benefits and potential return on investment, with an initial focus on sales and service. Examples of these use cases include:
- Sales: Generative AI can increase seller productivity with automated tasks to help drive ongoing engagement with customers and prospects.
- Service: Generative AI can also help improve customer experience and agent productivity for every customer service interaction with trusted CRM data and automate knowledge management to help companies respond to the needs of their customers more effectively.
- Industry-Specific AI Models: Salesforce and Accenture intend to build industry-specific AI models for customers in the financial services, health, manufacturing, and public sector industries.
- Generative AI & Data Cloud: Using Data Cloud to connect and harmonize information, Salesforce and Accenture will explore how generative AI can learn from customer data to create more personalized experiences for customers faster.
- Upskilling for AI Success: Salesforce and Accenture plan to develop learning resources that help teams develop and enhance their generative AI skills, fostering the next generation of talent within the Salesforce ecosystem. Specific areas of focus include programming Einstein GPT, AI literacy, data science and analytics, and ethics and responsible AI.
- The hub will also tap existing learning content on Trailhead, such as how to use AI to meet business needs, how to create ethical AI, and how Einstein GPT is transforming the future of work.
Einstein GPT has the power to transform customer experiences with generative AI. It enables companies to trigger powerful, time-saving automations, and to create personalized, AI-generated content across sales, service, marketing, IT, and more. For example, Einstein GPT can generate personalized emails for salespeople to send to customers, specific responses for customer service professionals to more quickly answer customer questions, targeted content for marketers to increase campaign response rates, and code for developers.
About Accenture
Accenture is a leading global professional services company that helps the world’s leading businesses, governments and other organizations build their digital core, optimize their operations, accelerate revenue growth and enhance citizen services—creating tangible value at speed and scale. We are a talent and innovation led company with 738,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Technology is at the core of change today, and we are one of the world’s leaders in helping drive that change, with strong ecosystem relationships. We combine our strength in technology with unmatched industry experience, functional expertise and global delivery capability. We are uniquely able to deliver tangible outcomes because of our broad range of services, solutions and assets across Strategy & Consulting, Technology, Operations, Industry X and Accenture Song. These capabilities, together with our culture of shared success and commitment to creating 360° value, enable us to help our clients succeed and build trusted, lasting relationships. We measure our success by the 360° value we create for our clients, each other, our shareholders, partners and communities. Visit us at www.accenture.com.
About Salesforce
Salesforce, the global CRM leader, empowers companies of every size and industry to digitally transform and create a 360° view of their customers. For more information about Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), visit: www.salesforce.com.
Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other press releases or public statements are not currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase Salesforce applications should make their purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available. Salesforce has headquarters in San Francisco, with offices in Europe and Asia, and trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "CRM." For more information please visit https://www.salesforce.com, or call 1-800-NO-SOFTWARE.
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Contact:
Hannah Unkefer
Accenture
+1 206 839 2172
hannah.m.unkefer@accenture.com
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