Salesforce Einstein Copilot AI Assistant Enters General Availability

Salesforce is working on making AI implementation easier and more predictable with a selection of newly available products and services announced around the Salesforce World Tour NY event on April 25. These products and services include:

• General availability of the Einstein Copilot generative AI assistant.
• Two new bundles: the AI Implementation Bundle and Data Governance Bundle.
• A new user experience for sales leaders called Slack Sales Elevate.

Einstein Copilot and agent functionality now generally available

The Salesforce Einstein Copilot, which sits alongside other Salesforce CRM products as an assistant and has been in public beta since February 2024, is generally available on April 25.

In addition, Einstein Copilot has new capabilities called Copilot Actions that let Copilot “agents” string actions together to complete tasks autonomously. For example, Copilot Actions can create close plans for sales reps and managers, analyze call transcripts and craft follow-up emails.

Einstein Copilot can be purchased in several ways:

• Einstein add-on offerings to Salesforce Enterprise and Salesforce Unlimited Editions.
• Salesforce Einstein 1 Editions.
• The Salesforce AI Implementation Bundle.

AI Implementation Bundle and Data Governance Bundle combine Salesforce data management tools for AI

Organizations may need to prove that their use of AI with customer data is secure, private and ethical. Salesforce created two bundles to address this and to make it easier for customers to roll out AI safely:

• The AI Implementation Bundle, which includes Einstein Copilot, Einstein 1 Studio, Platform licenses, Sandbox (Figure A) and Data Mask.
• The Data Governance Bundle, which includes Shield, Security Center and Privacy Center.

Figure A

Availability and pricing

Both bundles were made available on April 23 and are available internationally within Salesforce’s Einstein 1 Platform, wherever the Salesforce platform is sold. That platform costs $25 per user per month for the Platform Starter plan and $100 per user per month for the Platform Plus plan.

SEE: Is Salesforce CRM or Microsoft Dynamics better for your business? (TechRepublic) 

Choose between generative AI models

Customers can choose which generative AI model to access and use the Sandbox to preview what its outputs might look like and what data it might draw from without exposing private data to the rest of the organization.

Sandboxing is particularly important when using generative AI in a workplace environment because of the nondeterministic nature of the outputs.

“It’s not going to write the same email for every customer,” said Alice Steinglass, EVP and GM, Salesforce Platform, in an interview with TechRepublic. “So I want to try it out and I want to try it with real data, and that’s why we launched this AI implementation bundle.”

How Salesforce approaches AI governance with the new bundles

“We want to give you that control and that ability to, as these regulations change, to be able to still manage: What are the privacy restrictions that I need to have on my data?” said Steinglass, referring to both bundles. “We’ve got the right to be forgotten, we’ve got new privacy regulations. There might be new things I need to mask, maybe new retention policies – all of that changes. I want the ability to be able to understand where that is in my data.”

The AI Implementation bundle “gives them (companies) a playground to play with a sandbox where they can test it out, they can try it, they can train users on how to use it,” said Steinglass.

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“Our data governance bundle allows you to meet all of the regulation requirements that you need, wherever you’re based,” Steinglass said.

AI integration added to Slack Sales Elevate

In Slack, Salesforce is adding a variety of new AI sales tools integrating Slack Sales Elevate, Sales Cloud and Slack AI. These tools, which rolled out on April 24, let leaders see an overview of their team’s performance, pipeline data and account records.

Sales Elevate was created in response to increasing pressure in sales to hit targets, Salesforce said. Slack AI, Sales Cloud and Sales Elevate together allow sales team members to:

• Summarize which deals the team won or lost or which deals changed in value.
• Group deals in Slack synched to Salesforce by category.
• Later in 2024, Slack AI will be able to build account plans, mutual close plans or executive briefs automatically using company information from Salesforce.
• Later in 2024, Slack AI will be able to create “Record channels,” which are Slack channels that archive information about new opportunities in Salesforce, including activities and updated statuses, with templates (Figure B).

Figure B

AI enhancements to Slack Sales Elevate require subscriptions to both Slack Sales Elevate and Slack AI. Slack Sales Elevate costs $60 per user per month for users of Sales Cloud editions of Slack Business+ plans and above. Slack AI costs $10 per user per month for users who already pay for Slack Pro, Business+ and Enterprise plans.