Salesforce's Connections 2023 Provides Vision of AI for Marketers

Salesforce's Connections 2023 Provides Vision of AI for Marketers

This IDC Market Note is based primarily on discussions held at Salesforce's Connections 2023 and summarizes the various advances Salesforce is making as it develops a more AI-ubiquitous offering across the customer experience universe. Salesforce's Connections conference (and follow-on AI Days) showcased the company's vision for AI enablement and evolution across marketing — emphasizing the combination of AI + Data + CRM as the key ingredients driving the future of personalized experiences. Salesforce introduced Marketing GPT, a tool that leverages multiple generative AI back ends along with Data Cloud, to assist marketers with everything from content creation to audience segmentation.Salesforce highlighted its commitment to AI choice and controls, assuring clients that their information will be isolated and not maintained externally. In addition, the company plans to offer a range of AI options through future partnerships with companies like Accenture, Cohere, and Google Cloud, allowing customers to better optimize their compute options. The company also highlighted the importance of customer data, announcing enhancements to its Data Cloud, which provides a complete view of audiences and enables rapid identity resolution and segmentation.Salesforce's vision is robust, and the company's implementation plans seem more enterprise oriented than most vendors. While issues remain around availability, pricing, and module/nomenclature, the company is in the early days of its AI Cloud and new GPT collection. IDC expects that over time Salesforce will play a leadership role in the AI marketing space, helping create more stable and transparent pricing structures and facilitating greater adoption of AI technologies through demonstrated efficacy and ethicality.

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