Say Hello to Einstein Voice: Salesforce Ushers in New Era of Conversational CRM

Einstein Voice Assistant will transform the way people work, allowing them to get personalized daily briefings and make conversational updates to Salesforce via the Salesforce Mobile App or smart speaker of their choice

Admins will be able to build customer-facing Einstein Voice Bots connected to Salesforce, delivering more engaging, branded experiences with clicks, not code

SAN FRANCISCO — Sept 20, 2018 — Salesforce [NYSE: CRM], the global leader in CRM, today announced Einstein Voice, a new platform service that brings the power of voice to millions of Salesforce users. With Einstein Voice, any user will be able to talk to Salesforce, opening up new possibilities for employees to work smarter and connect with their customers in engaging new ways.

“We’re in the midst of an incredible technological shift, where the power of voice is fundamentally changing the way we work,” said Parker Harris, Co-Founder and CTO, Salesforce. “Einstein Voice will usher in a new era of conversational CRM, delivering new levels of productivity and redefining customer experiences with voice technology.”

Voice is the new enterprise UI

The emergence of voice-enabled technologies illustrates the unprecedented pace of computing innovation in the Fourth Industrial Revolution and its widespread impact on the way we work and live. The convergence of connected devices and advancements in natural language processing is rapidly making voice-activated interfaces ubiquitous. Today, one in five U.S. adults have smart speakers in their homes and Capgemini predicts that by 2021, 40 percent of consumers will use voice technology over apps and websites to do a wide range of activities—from search to shopping. For companies, this represents more than just a new way to interact with technology, but an entirely new way to engage with customers and reimagine business models.

Einstein Voice Assistant supercharges productivity

Einstein, the Salesforce AI platform, already delivers more than three billion predictions every day, helping our customers make smarter, more impactful decisions by acting as a smart CRM assistant across sales, service, marketing, commerce and more. Now, the company is bringing the same voice technology that fuels convenient, efficient experiences in our consumer lives to Salesforce with Einstein Voice. By arming users with the ability to talk to Salesforce on any device, Einstein Voice Assistant and Einstein Voice Bots will empower everyone to be more productive and work smarter—from anywhere.

With Einstein Voice Assistant, users can:

• Conversationally update Salesforce: Einstein Voice Assistant removes the friction of repetitive administrative tasks like data entry, giving users their time back by enabling them to simply dictate updates directly into the Salesforce Mobile App. Einstein Voice Assistant will automatically transform the unstructured voice data into action by updating Salesforce records, notifying team members and creating tasks. With Einstein Voice Assistant, users will be able to easily update Salesforce in real-time and run their business from anywhere.

• Get personalized Daily Briefings: Salesforce users will be able to start off every day with a tailored readout of key Salesforce metrics and priorities via their preferred voice assistant. Daily Briefings can be easily configured by admins to focus on what each business user cares about most—from the day’s schedule and key opportunity updates, to an overview of their team’s pipeline.

• Explore Salesforce dashboards: Voice commands will allow business users to quickly and easily surface the critical information they need in Salesforce. Instead of manually opening and filtering dashboards, users can now pull up Einstein Analytics dashboards and drill into granular detail—all with the power of their voice. For example, a sales manager can run pipeline review meetings more smoothly by simply asking Einstein to bring up their pipeline dashboard, dive into a specific region and identify their top local deals.

Einstein Voice Bots deliver intelligent experiences

Since Einstein is built on the Salesforce Platform, customers will also be able to build their own voice bots on the Einstein Bot Platform that are connected to Salesforce CRM data and integrated with smart speakers. Einstein Voice Bots will enable companies to create custom voice-enabled interactions for their own customers and employees.

• Build voice bots with clicks, not code: Admins will be able to quickly and easily build voice-powered bots that are connected to Salesforce in a matter of a few clicks and deploy them on the Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa. For example, a rental car company could deploy an Einstein Voice Bot to enable their customers to update a reservation with a simple voice command to the smart speaker of their choice. The Einstein Voice Bot would then source responses from knowledge articles in Service Cloud and share verbal answers to help quickly resolve the customer’s case.

• Brand voice bots to your company: Einstein Voice Bots can be easily customized to match corporate branding to provide a seamless and consistent experience. For instance, a rental car company can now create a custom command using Einstein Voice Bots so their customers can update reservations in Salesforce simply by asking the Google Assistant or Alexa.

Einstein at Dreamforce

Learn more about the latest innovations from Einstein at Dreamforce, September 25 – 28, 2018. Dreamforce brings together more than 170,000 Trailblazers, global leaders and visionaries for four days of inspiration, innovation, equality and fun. Join us at the Einstein keynote (Wednesday, September 26, 12:00 PM PT in Moscone North) to hear more about Einstein Voice, and visit us at the Einstein Ridge on the third floor of Moscone West.

Additional Information

• To learn more about Salesforce Einstein, please visit: https://www.salesforce.com/products/einstein/overview/

• To learn more about Einstein Voice, please see here: https://www.salesforce.com/blog/2018/09/introducing-einstein-voice.html

• Take the Get Smart With Salesforce Einstein Trail to learn more about Einstein

• Images of Einstein Voice can be downloaded from the Salesforce Newsroom: https://salesforce.com/news

• View thousands of hours of Dreamforce content, including keynotes, sessions and interviews online at http://salesforce.com/live

Pricing and Availability

• Einstein Voice Assistant will be in pilot as part of the Winter ‘19 release.

• Einstein Voice Bots will be in pilot as part of the Summer ’19 release.

• Pricing information will be made available at general availability.