Salesforce Announces New Fellowship Opportunities for Military Members and Spouses Moving into Tech Careers
On May 25, 2018, the European Union (EU) implemented the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a groundbreaking regulation built to safeguard privacy rights and regulate how businesses collect, store, process, and use personal data. From enhanced privacy rights and stronger data security measures to greater accountability and scrutiny on cross-border data transfers, GDPR has since reshaped global business operations and driven profound transformations in data practices.
To mark its fifth anniversary, Salesforce’s Ed Britan, Head of Global Privacy, and Stephanie Finck, Vice President of EMEA Government Affairs, reflect on the global impact of GDPR and how it may serve as a bellwether for future responsible tech regulation.
As the regulatory environment becomes more complex, businesses should approach this as an opportunity to put their customers at the center of their operations
The potential of generative AI is immense, and so is our responsibility. Since AI is based on data, dialogue between regulators, businesses, and civil society is critical to ensuring the proper collection and protection of that data, while also helping to unlock the economic opportunities associated with these emerging technologies
Global tire manufacturer Pirelli has digitally transformed its TyreClub+ sales platform using Salesforce to offer a more efficient and personalized B2B customer experience.
Why it’s important: Built on the Salesforce Platform, Commerce Cloud, and Marketing Cloud, TyreClub+ forms part of Pirelli’s wider digital transformation strategy to deliver customer-centric experiences.
Driving the news: TyreClub+ embeds innovation throughout the ordering process, responding to the needs of every customer and keeping them constantly informed with real-time data.
The Pirelli perspective: “Customers want to have confidence in the quality of their online experience and the products they’re purchasing, in the effectiveness of the ordering process, and reliability of delivery. With TyreClub+ we’re able to do all of this, embedding innovation at every step of their journey.” – Pier Paolo Tamma, SVP & Chief Digital Officer
With Salesforce, we can ensure a faster, simpler, and a more sustainable way of bringing our products to customers, and look forward to expanding TyreClub+ globally.
Pier Paolo Tamma, SVP & Chief Digital Officer, Pirelli
The Salesforce perspective: “Across every industry, companies are focused on connecting with their customers more effectively and delivering time to value with their technology investments. Pirelli demonstrates how cloud technologies are helping to deliver the automation, real-time data, and efficiency they need to thrive. Salesforce is excited to partner with Pirelli to transform how they engage with and respond to the needs of every customer, and to become more sustainable.” – Lori Steele, President & Chief Revenue Officer, Salesforce EMEA
What’s next: Following launches in Italy and Germany, TyreClub+ is now also active in France, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and Ireland, and will be rolled out in additional markets throughout 2023 with increasingly advanced features. The most recent roll-out allows tire dealers to stay informed of Pirelli’s latest commercial campaigns.
More information: Read more customer stories here.
Since its public rollout in 2014, Slack has steadily evolved from the acronym it’s named for (searchable log of all conversation and knowledge) — to a productivity platform that has fundamentally shifted how work gets done.
Earlier this month, the company released a next-generation platform that makes it easier to automate and integrate everything with Slack — no matter a person’s level of technical experience or coding proficiency. From creating no-code workflows and custom integrations to embedding generative AI, with the new platform, using the data in Slack is now simpler, more automated, and more intelligent.
Slack’s SVP of Product and Platform, Steve Wood, has a history building low-code platforms like these both within Salesforce and as a startup founder. As he explains it, putting automation and generative AI directly into customers’s hands is the next big step forward in Slack’s journey to transform not just the way people work, but how machines and people interact in the future.
Here, Wood shares a behind-the-scenes look of the new Slack platform, insights on how Slack GPT will supercharge automation, and what his team will be looking out for as the tech continues to evolve.
The Slack platform has always been about engagement: how do we engage every user, regardless of their technical expertise, to be able to automate their work in Slack?
The new version of our platform that became generally available to developers last month offers a modular architecture grounded in ‘building blocks’ like functions, triggers, and workflows that are remixable, reusable, and hook into everything flowing in and out of Slack. For example, developers can build bespoke solutions to integrate with the Salesforce platform, enabling users to collaborate more effectively and automate workflows across sales, service, marketing, and commerce, directly in the flow of work.
With the new platform and the launch of Slack GPT, developers can also code workflows that embed AI actions with simple prompts at each step, making it easy for anyone to deploy AI-powered automation. That capability will be released this summer via Slack’s no-code automation tool, Workflow Builder.
All of this empowers people – whether they’re developers or not – to make whatever they do at work easier and more efficient.
All of this empowers people – whether they’re developers or not – to make whatever they do at work easier and more efficient.
When new technologies come out, the developers and experts are the first to use it. Low code brings more and more people into the tools – whether through apps or AI – so everybody can benefit.
We want the Slack platform to be super easy to discover and use, and then, if you’re feeling brave, you can join the low-code revolution. You can remix and reuse building blocks to form your workflows, add your own changes, and publish your improvements to it. You can supercharge everything you do through customization in Slack.
I truly believe that data paired with AI and automation will transform the way we work.
When they made a conversational interface for ChatGPT, it was like, ‘Wow, now everybody can interact with this advanced AI in new ways,’ and you saw an explosion of use, which we’re also seeing with Slack. Slack becomes a conversational interface that helps customers work smarter, learn faster, and communicate better.
Low code has simplified automation into building blocks that are reusable by both humans and machines. Pair that with generative AI on your trusted company data stored in Slack and Salesforce, and we have the potential to completely reshape how we interact with technology. We may look back five years from now and go, ‘Remember when we used to work with computers like that, typing stuff into fields manually? That was kind of crazy.’ It reminds me of when the iPhone was first released – everyone knew it was a big deal, but only years later was the full potential realized.
For one, Slack GPT brings generative AI natively into the user experience of Slack to do things like summarize conversations and huddles, or edit a message.
Here’s why that’s so powerful: Somebody once joked with me that being away from Slack for a few weeks is like going on vacation and looking at your credit card statement when you return. You might have this overwhelming feeling and think ‘Oh wow, I’ve got a lot to catch up on.’ With Slack GPT, you can summarize all of the messages that came in while you were gone to get you up to speed quicker.
With native AI delivered right into Slack’s user interface, it will all be possible with just a click.
With the Einstein GPT app for Slack, Slack will be the conversational interface to Customer 360, soon bringing Einstein GPT-powered insights from real-time customer data to life in Slack and enriching every team’s understanding of their customers.
And the part I’m most excited about, is that Slack GPT also allows you to integrate and automate your LLM of choice, whether that’s a partner-built app like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Anthropic’s Claude, or a custom integration. You’ll also be able to instantly bring generative AI into your automated processes. For example, you could build an AI-powered workflow so that when a new lead comes in from Sales Cloud, ChatGPT could use CRM data to draft a personalized prospecting email for you, put it in a document, and share it in a channel. Now, you have a huge head start to follow up on the lead.
When you think about all of these innovations within Salesforce, with the combination of Einstein GPT, Data Cloud, Customer 360 and now Slack GPT, you have an incredible nexus of forces coming together to supercharge Slack and Salesforce. It creates incredible opportunities for customers to transform the way they work.
When you think about all of these innovations within Salesforce, with the combination of Einstein GPT, Data Cloud, Customer 360 and now Slack GPT, you have an incredible nexus of forces coming together to supercharge Slack and Salesforce.
What we’re most excited to see is what people do with Slack GPT when it’s out in the wild. Seeing how people actually use new technologies, versus what we developers think of how people will use it, is always very different. We see that all the time, but that’s also the fun part – seeing those unexpected use cases and behaviors.
The main focus of Slack GPT is really our commitment to bring native generative AI into Slack and having LLM technologies show up well in Slack. They’re there to empower our platform users who use our no-code and low-code capabilities, and to improve our customers’ experience.
We’re not building our own LLM technology yet, we’re leveraging the technology and embedding it into the product itself, which opens up ways to learn from the data and behaviors we see and make the product even better along the way.
When I joined Slack during the pandemic, my predecessor added me to several channels. If I was wondering about a decision, I could just search or scroll backwards in the channel. I didn’t have to have people forwarding me emails, because I had this historical knowledge that I could reference.
People should care more about that history because the information and knowledge in those conversations are the collective past that informs the future and shows how your organization actually operates. But more than that, it lets your organization tap into additional data that shows how people use tools and workflows, which means you can then improve on them. And then applying AI technologies to the rich dataset inside of Slack is a tremendous opportunity.
It’s all about the relevance of information and having it easily accessible, preferably in one place. Slack is where work gets done, and it’s really good at the changes: an opportunity closed, a new lead created, or a new case filed.
Data from these scenarios is in Salesforce, but the event should go in Slack as it evolves and changes along the way. Then, when you layer in the generative AI, you have this assistant to help guide you through this event, which we hope will drive massive transparency. It’s ultimately about acting most effectively in the most aligned and transparent way possible so you feel informed when you make decisions in real time.
It’s ultimately about acting most effectively in the most aligned and transparent way possible so you feel informed when you make decisions in real time.
It’s a really interesting time and place, especially for me and other developers, because not even the creators of the technology fully understand how it works or how you should interact with it. That’s unusual in the software industry. We like control and making informed decisions based on best practices and behaviors, but this is the first time where we actually don’t really know the expected behavior.
So because of that, we need stability and assurances that the information that we’re giving to our customers is 100% accurate and we’re driving processes and automations that are consistent, accurate, and safe across the board.
The future really depends on ethical and responsible development that focuses on building trust, which is also Salesforce’s number one value. We have this amazing technology and it seems to be able to do incredible things, but how do we ensure that our customers feel they can trust it as well? That’s something we take very seriously and are actively working on.
Breakthroughs in generative artificial intelligence have the potential to bring about sweeping changes to the global economy. In fact, Goldman Sachs research believes that new developments in AI could drive as much as $7 trillion in global economic growth by 2030.
To unlock new opportunities and achieve that growth, companies must develop a clear AI strategy aligned with their business objectives, safely implement it, and drive results. For many businesses, that’s an intimidating undertaking.
We recently met with Clara Shih, newly named CEO of Salesforce AI, to talk about her new role, how companies can prepare for generative AI, and how Salesforce is leading customers into an AI future.
Salesforce is not new to generative AI. Our research team has been working on large language models for several years and pioneered prompt engineering in 2018. I’ve been leading Service Cloud, our portfolio of customer service technologies, and we have a tremendous foundation of AI expertise to build on. Salesforce has more than 1,500 machine learning engineers and data scientists across the company, and AI infused into every product, delivering over a trillion AI predictions every week for our customers.
We have a tremendous foundation of AI expertise to build on, including 1,500 machine learning engineers and data scientists across the company, and AI infused into every Salesforce product, delivering over a trillion AI predictions every week for our customers.
Clara shih, CEo, salesforce ai
As I transition to advancing and accelerating our AI solutions across the company, I’m focused on three areas:
Data is fuel for AI — without high-quality, trusted data, it becomes ‘garbage in, garbage out.’ AI pulling from data sources that are irrelevant, unrepresentative, or incomplete, can create bias, hallucinations, and toxic outputs.
Managing data is the most important action a business can take to successfully implement generative AI, yet 41% of business leaders lack an understanding of their data because it’s too complex and they’re simply overwhelmed by it.
This is why so many customers are looking to Salesforce for their AI. We offer the single source of truth for customer data across sales, service, marketing, and commerce interactions. Our Data Cloud unifies and harmonizes all of this Salesforce data, as well as data from any external source, data warehouse, and data lake, so that it’s ready for use at any moment. For example, Ford Motor Company streams real-time telemetry data from cars into Data Cloud, where it gets harmonized and actioned in the form of proactive customer service text messages, say, when a vehicle is due for an oil change or maintenance check. The message contains information about the nearest servicing center and a link to book an appointment. This same data could be used to automatically generate a work order with AI.
Managing data is the most important action a business can take to successfully implement generative AI, yet 41% of business leaders lack an understanding of their data because it’s too complex and they’re simply overwhelmed by it.
Clara shih, CEo, salesforce ai
When I started at the company 17 years ago, our values were Trust, Customer Success, and Innovation. Those have continued to hold true and guide everything we do as a company. Back then, these values guided how we brought cloud computing to the world. Today, these same values, and our new ones, are guiding how we bring generative AI to every customer, from small businesses to the largest global enterprises, banks, and government agencies.
Now, AI is the major disruptive force that will change every company. Customers are looking to us to lead, and this is why the company created a new role and organization focused on advancing and accelerating our AI solutions across the company. We know that for companies to succeed in today’s economy, they need AI+Data+CRM — so we’re bringing together Einstein AI, Data Cloud, and our #1 CRM to unleash new levels of automation and innovation. I feel very fortunate to be leading an expanded organization that is laser-focused on this massive opportunity in AI.
There are three things that really set Salesforce apart.
I am very thankful to Salesforce, our customers, and partners for the incredible opportunity to take on this role leading AI for the company during this historic moment for the world. It’s an exciting time for the whole Salesforce ecosystem – we have an amazing pipeline of innovation being delivered in the coming months, from Service GPT and Einstein GPT to Slack GPT and Tableau GPT.
We are lucky to have some of the most brilliant AI minds in the industry at Salesforce. We will be working hard to deliver new levels of success for our customers and partners. I look forward to learning a lot and partnering together to redefine the industry.
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It was a day like so many others throughout the pandemic. Anxiety, worry and dread were heavy on her mind. But on this day, something shifted for Jodina Grande.
“For the first time in my career, an employer provided a safe space for people to talk about mental health, a topic that was previously taboo in the workplace,” said Grande, a lead solutions engineer at Salesforce.
It was summer of 2021, and Salesforce had just hosted its first company-wide Mental Health Town Hall to address a rise in mental health concerns among its workforce. The goal of the town hall was to encourage employees to find community, learn about resources available to them, and hear from leadership and peers about their own mental health journeys.
It would also change the way Grande thought about mental health in the workplace.
In 2021, nearly half of Americans reported symptoms of anxiety or depressive disorders — a massive jump from the 11% that reported mental health symptoms prior to 2020. What’s more, 150 million people live in designated mental health professional shortage areas, making it difficult to find professional support. So it’s no surprise that people started turning to each other in the workplace for support.
Having experienced mental health challenges first-hand, Grande deeply understood the importance of this issue.
“I’ve lived with anxiety, depression, and other mental health conditions for most of my life. I received support within my household because my immediate family was so open about mental health, but I learned very quickly that society wasn’t as receptive to these challenges,” said Grande. “At best, people were confused or dismissive, and at worst, people were mean or ostracizing. When I started my career, I made a conscious decision to lead with empathy in the workplace since you never know what struggles people are going through behind closed doors.”
When I started my career, I made a conscious decision to lead with empathy in the workplace since you never know what struggles people are going through behind closed doors.
Jodina Grande, Lead Solutions Engineer
When the pandemic hit and many employees worked from their homes, colleagues got a more intimate glimpse into each other’s personal lives. As a result, mental health became hard to ignore — you could see people who were trying to balance childcare during the work day or feeling the strain of looking after an immuno-comprimised family member.
So, just a few months after that town hall, Grande decided to take action of her own. She created a #mental-health-matters Slack channel at Salesforce to provide a safe, supportive, and stigma-free community for anyone interested in mental health awareness.
“It was crucial to me to create a space that destigmatizes the preconceived notions of mental health,” Grande stated. “By opening up about mental health in the workplace, we can set essential boundaries, find support we need, and feel more connected to our teams, which ultimately helps us be more productive in our day-to-day jobs.”
By opening up about mental health in the workplace, we can set essential boundaries, find support we need, and feel more connected to our teams, which ultimately helps us be more productive in our day-to-day jobs.
Jodina Grande, Lead Solutions Engineer
Today, the #mental-health-matters channel has empowered more than 2,500 employees to find support, knowledge and resources, including employee events and town halls, workflows for members willing to share their mental health status, and critical benefits like free therapy and mental fitness coaching.
At the same time, Salesforce sharpened its focus on mental health and wellbeing. The company committed to surrounding employees with the right structure to build mental strength and resilience, layering on benefits to support their overall wellbeing.
“Employees must be well to do well,” said Abby Hollingsworth, Vice President of Global Employee Benefits at Salesforce. “We are committed to investing in benefits and programs to keep our employees and their families happy and healthy, so they can bring their best selves to work every day.”
We are committed to investing in benefits and programs to keep our employees and their families happy and healthy, so they can bring their best selves to work every day.
Abby Hollingsworth, Vice President of Global Employee Benefits
The company is focused on providing inclusive therapy and coaching, equipping managers with the right tools to support their teams, opening up access to mental health benefits globally, and normalizing mental health in the workplace through company-wide Mental Health town halls.
“One of the Salesforce benefits I’ve found most useful is BetterUp coaching, which has given me resources like preventative mental health care, dedicated mental fitness coaches, and interactive workshops to help me grow professionally,” Grande said.
Salesforce employees also have access to tools and trainings to help navigate mental health conversations in the workplace, which Grande leverages for herself, her team, and in the management of the Slack channel.
“Mental health and wellbeing remains an important part of our high performance culture,” added Hollingsworth. “When you improve employees’ minds, you improve productivity and ultimately improve business outcomes. It’s just that simple.”
Salesforce’s new Consumer Goods Industry Insights Report finds that data, deep personalization, and direct-to-consumer (DTC) models are becoming even more critical in a rapidly-evolving consumer landscape.
The report, which is based on insights from 1,500 decision makers across the globe, reveals how overall outlooks, business strategies, and technology stacks are adjusting to digital transformation.
“As the consumer goods industry strives for profitable growth, leaders are leaning into data for increased visibility and better insights,” said Kishan Chetan, SVP & GM, Retail & Consumer Goods, Salesforce. “This first-party, proprietary data will become increasingly important in the very near future as generative AI becomes standard across customer relationship management platforms. The combination of AI, data, and CRM will allow every brand to connect with their customers in a whole new way.”
The combination of AI, data, and CRM will allow every brand to connect with their customers in a whole new way.
Kishan Chetan, SVP & GM, Retail & Consumer Goods, Salesforce
Here’s a sampling of key findings from the full report.
Despite a steady stream of mixed, if not outright gloomy, economic indicators for well over a year, consumer spending has remained steady or even grown slightly, and prices remain elevated. As a result, 90% of consumer goods industry decision makers expect profitable growth at their companies over the coming two years. What’s more, 77% expect to increase their marketing spend, with social media to see the largest boost.
Marketing spend can boost top-line growth and stave off the competition, an increasing concern for the industry. While supply chain difficulties still top the list of the industry’s woes, increased competition is now a close second on the list of overall challenges.
Amid challenges, there are also opportunities for consumer goods companies. Decision makers list product innovation at the top of their list of opportunities ahead, followed by DTC selling models.
The common thread in factors transforming the consumer goods industry — like other industries — is data. The increasing volume of data, along with the ability to use AI to take informed and timely action, provides immense opportunity to drive efficiencies, deepen customer relationships, and pursue new business opportunities and revenue streams.
Case in point: A recent survey of marketers found those in the consumer goods industry using an average of 18 data sources to inform customer engagement — up from the 10 they reported just two years previously.
A recent survey of marketers found those in the consumer goods industry using an average of 18 data sources to inform customer engagement — up from the 10 they reported just two years previously.
Consumer goods companies have taken this increasing reliance on data, and the need to make the most of it, to heart by making requisite investments. Nearly all (93%) respondents agree or strongly agree they can effectively use data to optimize prices and promotions, for example, and 92% say the same for their ability to use data to improve overall profitability.
DTC selling models are nothing new, but they are increasingly popular. In fact, a separate survey in 2022 found that 64% of consumers buy directly from a brand — up sharply from 49% in 2019.
In response, 91% of consumer goods decision makers say they now have some form of DTC structure in place. The revenue impacts are substantial: DTC channels account for more than 10% of overall revenue for nearly all (99%) companies that have them.
Yet despite its boon to the top line, consumer goods decision makers overall don’t rank incremental revenue as their top reason for selling DTC. Instead, two of the top value propositions for DTC revolve around the wealth of customer data they provide companies — such as insights on behaviors that can inform product innovation strategies or enable deep personalization that builds valuable relationships — and the third is around improved brand governance.
DTC selling still has its challenges, though, such as persuading customers to cut out retailer middlemen or shouldering marketing and customer service costs that retailers would otherwise take on.
Despite their embrace of DTC selling and direct customer relationships, tried-and-true sales through retailers and wholesalers still drive the bulk of consumer goods companies’ revenue streams. But an evolving retail landscape is proving difficult to navigate, and a significant portion of in-store product and marketing initiatives — nearly 40% on average — do not go as intended.
Survey respondents indicated particular dissatisfaction with the validity of out-of-stock statuses and their ability to act on analytics such as product assortment or promotional data. These challenges are likely compounded by the fact that only 36% of consumer goods decision makers report a high adoption of trade promotion software at their companies, thus relying in no small part on antiquated tools like spreadsheets to monitor and take action on retail logistics.
Eighty-three percent of consumer goods decision makers believe it’s now harder than ever to maintain customer loyalty, with price sensitivity leading the list of hurdles to overcome in an inflationary environment.
Loyalty programs have been a mainstay for retailers for decades, and for good reason: 56% of consumers say they’re more likely to buy from brands with loyalty programs. As DTC becomes increasingly table stakes for consumer goods companies, so too are industry loyalty programs that help build deeper, more direct customer relationships. In fact, 70% of consumer goods decision makers now claim their companies have loyalty programs.
Unless cited otherwise, data is from a double-anonymous survey of 1,500 consumer goods industry decision makers in Australia and New Zealand, Canada, France, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom and Ireland, and the United States. The survey was live from February 16 through March 9, 2023. All respondents are third-party panelists. Additional information can be found in the report.
Today, Salesforce introduced Hybrid Storefronts, which pairs pre-built Commerce Cloud templates with Composable Storefront to give businesses the flexibility to combine templated and customizable headless approaches to ecommerce site development.
Why it’s relevant: Research shows that 80% of businesses without headless commerce technology — the separation of the front end and back end of an ecommerce application for greater customization and agility — plan to implement it in the next two years. However, many commerce leaders fear that moving from a templated ecommerce site to a custom, headless one will be expensive or time-intensive.
Innovation in action: With Hybrid Storefronts, merchants can start their headless commerce journey with the ability to create unique, AI-powered commerce experiences with Composable Storefront while using pre-built Commerce Cloud templates for automating development of more uniform pages. With this flexible deployment approach, customers are empowered to:
Salesforce perspective: “Commerce companies are looking to architect high-caliber headless ecommerce sites that can swiftly adapt to changing customer expectations and continue to foster strong customer relationships. With the combined power of data, AI, and CRM, Commerce Cloud gives brands the choice of the right tool so they can implement headless their way — whether that’s getting to market quickly with storefront templates, using Composable Storefront for headless commerce to create unique, agile experiences, or unlocking time to value with a combination of both.” – Michael Affronti, GM and SVP of Commerce Cloud
With the combined power of data, AI, and CRM, Commerce Cloud gives brands the choice of the right tool so they can implement headless their way.
Michael Affronti, GM and SVP of Commerce Cloud
Reaction to the news: “The phased approach to composability that we experienced with Salesforce helped us limit the risks of a big bang rollout and reduce the testing effort tremendously. This way, we could test, learn quickly on production, and improve the experience before moving to the next chunk of development.” – Yann Milin, Business Solutions Manager, Stokke
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Adobe Population Health, an innovative care management company, turned to automation to modernize patient billing, care data, and health insurance validation. With MuleSoft technology, workflows, tasks, and processes are now automated, saving the company more than 5,000 work hours annually and over $439,000 in total labor and efficiency value and cost avoidance.
Why it’s important: Most (79%) healthcare and life sciences workers say automation is important to their organization’s future. However, only 12% of healthcare and life sciences organizations have fully realized their digital transformation goals.
Adobe Population Health, which is projecting a 5x increase in patient volume in the coming years, uses external payment portals. In the past, these required costly, manual data entry procedures that introduced data integrity risk.
The Salesforce solution: Now, using RPA, Composer, and Flow, Adobe Population Health has improved data interoperability between electronic medical records and the systems used for patient care and billing. This has also saved time for nurses to focus on providing personalized care, putting patients at the center of their care journey.
The customer perspective: “Integrating our billing systems and unleashing the power of automation helped us simplify our operations and increase efficiency of care. Nurses now spend less time on manual administrative tasks and can focus on providing the high quality care patients expect.” — Alex Waddell, Chief Information Officer, Adobe Population Health
Integrating our billing systems and unleashing the power of automation helped us simplify our operations and increase efficiency of care. Nurses now spend less time on manual administrative tasks and can focus on providing the high quality care patients expect.
Alex Waddell, Chief Information Officer, Adobe Population Health
Fast fact: Salesforce partners, like Studio Science, work with customers to create new, digital-first experiences with Salesforce. Adobe Population Health brought in Studio Science to help identify digital pain points in its customer experience, and implement RPA, Composer and Flow to address those by improving patient billing, care data, and health insurance validation processes.
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In our increasingly data-driven world, businesses need to understand their data, gather insights, and make decisions fast.
Historically, seeing and understanding data was limited to data experts. The future, though, is making insights accessible to everyone in their flow of work, powered by unified, real-time data, and with generative AI explaining both what the data means — and how someone could act on it.
Salesforce took a big leap into that future by announcing Tableau GPT, which uses generative AI to better understand and interact with data, and Tableau Pulse, which taps AI and unified, real-time data to proactively surface personalized insights with natural language and a visual format.
Here, Tableau Chief Product Officer Francois Ajenstat shares how — by bringing the power of generative AI to analytics and combining it with Data Cloud — Tableau is empowering everyone to make smarter, data-driven decisions.
Organizations must be data driven to survive and thrive. The reality is, data-driven companies are more successful — they retain customers, have mastered profitable growth, and will be a better company to work for. However, most people in organizations don’t have the training or time to digest and interpret their data to make decisions — they leave it up to a small cadre of experts who are stretched thin.
Tableau’s mission is to empower anyone to see and understand their data for better decision-making. If we can help every person — whether they’re a data analyst or a regular business user — infuse data and analytics in their flow of work and make it easy to act on, we’ll be able to drive better decisions and outcomes for that organization.
At Tableau, we’ve always focused on making the complex simple.
Tableau GPT brings generative AI to data and analytics so that you don’t have to be a data expert to understand data. Users can generate insights in a conversational way by asking questions within Tableau. Tableau Pulse uses Tableau GPT to automate analytics, surfacing insights in both natural language and visual format, so users receive proactive insights in a digestible and shareable form.
Tableau GPT technology is layered on top of VizQL, our proprietary visual query language, which helps translate human intent into database queries. Tableau GPT learns what kinds of questions people are asking it, and sends that to VizQL in the background, enabling GPT recommendations to get smarter and more accurate. Results from queries can be visualizations or fully formed narratives thanks to Data Stories, which transforms data into natural language stories.
With Tableau GPT, data will feel more like a colleague that has your back, tapping your shoulder when there’s something you should engage with. The more you collaborate with that colleague, the more they collaborate back, and together, you’re able to find solutions to problems faster and more reliably than if you were working alone.
With Tableau GPT, data will feel more like a colleague that has your back, tapping your shoulder when there’s something you should engage with. The more you collaborate with that colleague, the more they collaborate back, and together, you’re able to find solutions to problems faster and more reliably than if you were working alone.
Imagine a store manager who wants to spend less time manually analyzing complex monthly sales for reasons why they’re down, or trying to understand inventory holdup implications, and more time connecting with customers to drive revenues. With Tableau Pulse, this manager can get a complete picture of their business — either directly in Slack or in their inbox. They can focus their attention on the metrics that have anomalies or outliers. And they can ask questions of their data in natural language, like ‘how much inventory do I have’ or ‘which products have had the most returns’ and get simple answers quickly to inform product displays.
Or, imagine a manufacturer tracking their supply chain. Tableau Pulse can proactively send notifications if certain products are not delivered on time, or if there’s outliers or disruptions in the data they need to act on.
The other very powerful use case is using Tableau GPT as an assistant to help perform an analysis. Where before only a small subset of data analysts had the expertise to write calculations or build transformations, the amount of people who can see and access this data is now 10x thanks to Tableau GPT. Everyone will be more data-informed as a result.
To get the most out of generative AI, people need to trust that the questions they ask give trusted answers back. With Tableau GPT, the output is always grounded in analysis directly on a company’s proprietary and trusted data — not just information from the internet. This data is also coming from across Salesforce Customer 360, in real time, thanks to Data Cloud.
Normally, it’d be a long process from when data is generated to when users can work with it, access it, and then act on it. By integrating data and analytics at the heart of the Customer 360, users can create AI-powered insights in real time to power better solutions for customers.
Companies are drowning in data and lacking in insights. There’s so much data coming in faster than ever, and getting a complete picture has historically been a challenge. A recent Salesforce study found that organizations today use over 1,000 applications, but 70% remain disconnected from one another and the core business, leading to data silos.
With Data Cloud, we’re able to provide data connectivity, data integration, and harmonization that turns every customer touchpoint into unified, real-time profiles of a customer. All of that data is natively accessible by Tableau, providing fast, analytically-ready content that users can share out easily, like visualizations.
I like to say that data analysis without action is a missed opportunity and with Data Cloud we bring data, with Tableau we bring analysis, and combined we help users drive action at scale.
Today, as customers accelerate their digital transformations, they’re generating more data than ever before — a data transformation, if you will. Tableau is helping to unlock the value of this data in the Customer 360 so businesses can connect with their customers in a whole new way. AI, including generative AI, layers into the Customer 360 a system of intelligence that makes everything simpler and more powerful, enabling teams to spend more time on the things that matter, rather than the boring tedious tasks of the past.
Here’s how I think about it. Salesforce unites companies around customers. Tableau unites people around data. Together, we unite companies around their customer data, and now, with generative AI in Einstein, Tableau, and more, we do this even more intelligently than before.
When I talk to customers, the majority can’t access their data. It’s not approachable in the way they’d hoped.
On the flipside, customers making the most of their data have learned this simple lesson: When you empower your people with data, everyone wins. I recently met with a customer who is trying to help their financial advisors provide better client service. They wanted their advisors to have a complete picture of their customers, with actionable, trusted analytics data visible in their existing systems, to serve them better. They’re using Tableau now, and the advisors are much more informed and engaged, and able to focus on what matters: cultivating relationships with their customers.
Trust is critical. Companies need to trust their data, and that is so fundamental to what we do at Salesforce. They also need easy solutions that enable curiosity and exploration — not technology that creates more walls, but rather breaks down existing walls and helps people explore and share learnings as they go about their day. The future is all about democratized analytics in the flow of work, and providing everyone with an AI assistant that helps them see and understand their data in new ways.
Learn more about Tableau innovations here.
Half of automotive employees say they personally don’t have to worry about security at work
Almost two-thirds access work documents or systems from their personal device
Almost half think that generative AI is safe to use at work, with already 42% having experimented with it for work
Nearly a third (30%) of automotive employees don’t check security protocols before trying a new tool, according to a new Salesforce survey of 400 automotive employees. This could put their company and customer data at risk.
Cybersecurity is a growing concern in the automotive industry, particularly as companies store and use exponentially more data to power connected car features. According to Upstream, the number of automotive API attacks increased by 380% last year alone. And, more than a third (34%) of automotive employees in Salesforce’s survey said their company receives more security threats now than two years ago.
According to Upstream, the number of automotive API attacks increased by 380% last year alone.
Salesforce’s New Era of Data Stewardship in Automotive research explores the implications of gaps between company security efforts and employee actions, and reveals a need for automotive organizations to empower employees with trusted, easy-to-use technologies.
A large number (42%) of employees in the automotive industry have experimented with generative AI for work, compared to 15% in healthcare and 12% in government agencies.
As the industry transitions to software-defined vehicles and adopts new technologies to digitize and personalize customer experiences, it becomes increasingly important to protect sensitive information about vehicles, drivers, and passengers. The research shows that there’s a long road ahead:
Tools and devices are a particular area of concern as the industry continues to digitize:
“As cars become increasingly connected and the automotive industry continues to digitize its operations, more data will be generated that will open the industry up to increased risk,” said Achyut Jajoo, SVP and GM of Automotive and Manufacturing, Salesforce. “It is important that automotive employees understand the importance of cyber hygiene and take a proactive approach to data security.”
It is important that automotive employees understand the importance of cyber hygiene and take a proactive approach to data security.
Achyut Jajoo, SVP and GM of Automotive and Manufacturing, Salesforce
Employees are only one piece of the puzzle. While 72% of automotive employees say they have a security-first culture, and 74% say their company has the tools needed to keep data secure, 21% say that security protocols are not strictly enforced.
Company-sponsored training is the natural course of action to close these gaps, and a majority (71%) say they have the training needed to keep data secure. However, the training itself needs a revamp to keep security top-of-mind and working in practice, according to the data:
“Automotive companies can foster a strong culture of trust and security by continuously engaging their employees to protect customer and company information. And they can empower them with regularly updated and patched technologies built with security at their core,” continued Jajoo.
Data from Salesforce’s New Era in Data Stewardship is based on a survey of 1,230 full-time employees within automotive (400 respondents), government (412 respondents), and healthcare (418 respondents) across the U.S. The survey was conducted in partnership with YouGov in March 2023.
Today at Tableau Conference, Salesforce and Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced an integration between Tableau and Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3). The AWS S3 connector for Tableau* provides customers with quick and simple access to unstructured data stored in AWS S3 directly from Tableau, improving the flow of work and driving greater efficiency and better decision-making.
Significance: Forty-one percent of business leaders find their data complex and hard to access, making it difficult to make data-driven decisions. Unstructured data in particular does not have a predefined format, making it even harder to understand and process. To be successful in a future driven by generative AI, businesses need a better way to structure, make sense of, and act on their untapped data.
The AWS S3 Connector for Tableau is powered by Hyper technology, Tableau’s in-memory data engine. It speeds up data ingesting and analytical query processing, and makes it easier to access and analyze unstructured data from S3 and gain insights directly in Tableau.
Innovation in action: With the addition of the AWS S3 connector for Tableau, customers can:
In addition, Tableau and AWS offer connectors for Amazon Redshift, Amazon EMR Hadoop Hive, Amazon Athena, Amazon Aurora, and Amazon DocumentDB.
Salesforce perspective: “We know many of our customers have critical, untapped data in their S3 buckets. Through this valued partnership with AWS, our customers can now leverage the power of Tableau’s Hyper technology to analyze their data from S3 in Tableau to deliver a truly efficient and highly performant analytics experience, helping them to succeed in a future driven by generative AI.” – Pedro Arellano, SVP & GM of Tableau, Salesforce
Through this valued partnership with AWS, our customers can now leverage the power of Tableau’s Hyper technology to analyze their data from S3 in Tableau to deliver a truly efficient and highly performant analytics experience, helping them to succeed in a future driven by generative AI.
Pedro Arellano, SVP & GM of Tableau, Salesforce
AWS perspective: “With Tableau and Amazon Simple Storage Service, we will help customers glean and visualize insights at scale. S3 offers data availability, security, and performance, and we’re excited to help our customers accelerate efficiency and time to value with the Amazon S3 connector for Tableau.” – Flemming Kongsberg, Director, Business Application Alliances, AWS
More information:
*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.
Salesforce today announced a momentum update around Tableau’s data pledge, sharing that nearly two million people have been trained through its data skills program since January 2022.
Why it’s important: Businesses rely on data to make decisions, but there’s a talent gap, with just 39% of organizations training their employees with data skills and less than half of colleges offering specific data skills courses.
Behind the numbers: In 2021, Tableau committed to helping 10 million people across the globe become data literate by 2027. To help reach this goal, Tableau offers free and unique educational programs and resources across the Salesforce ecosystem. They include:
What’s coming: Together with online education platforms Coursera and Pathstream, a newly developed professional certificate* will prepare learners for an entry level business analyst role across industries. Upon finishing all eight courses, learners will receive a certificate of completion and be prepared to take Tableau’s Desktop Specialist exam, which proves basic skills and product knowledge of Tableau Desktop.
Soundbites:
Tableau’s mission has always been to help people see and understand data, and through our data literacy programs, we will continue to make data skills more accessible for all.
Larissa Amoroso, VP of Tableau Community, Salesforce
Learn more:
*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.
