The Promise and Potential of Trustworthy AI in Sales

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The Promise and Potential of Trustworthy AI in Sales

Salesforce has recently introduced new AI capabilities, including Copilot for Sales and Automated Prospecting, designed to enhance the efficiency of sales teams. These AI-powered tools streamline research, automate tasks such as summarizing meetings and creating emails, and connect real-time internal Salesforce and external data.

The relevance of these innovations is highlighted by the State of Service, Fifth Edition report, which surveyed approximately 8,000 customer service professionals worldwide. The report found that sales teams spend 72% of their time on administrative and non-selling tasks despite their ambition to focus on closing deals and increasing profits. Moreover, only 28% of sales professionals expect their team to meet annual quotas.

To address this gap, Salesforce is introducing new AI capabilities powered by unified data to transform sales workflows. These innovations, integrated on a single Salesforce platform, include:

  • Copilot for Sales (expected to be generally available in February) is an AI-powered sales assistant that can research accounts, update CRM data, and prepare for meetings for sellers via any device.
  • Call Summarization & Exploration, which automatically generates call summaries to share with teams.
  • Sales Email, which leverages generative AI to create customized, personalized outreach emails that match each seller's unique style.
  • Automated Prospecting (currently in pilot, expected to be generally available in Spring), which utilizes Data Cloud to segment and score accounts by metrics such as customer fit and expansion, optimizing prospect targeting and engagement.
  • Process Intelligence, which enables sales operations to easily build data models combining internal and external sources to optimize performance indicators around win rate, churn, etc.
  • Sales Cloud Everywhere, which brings core Sales Cloud capabilities into email platforms like Outlook and Gmail to seamlessly manage opportunities on the go.

By integrating trusted AI innovations natively into Salesforce, these new tools aim to transform workflows through automation, insights, and increased productivity. Salesforce, along with other companies, is rapidly adopting and leveraging AI. According to IDC, worldwide spending on artificial intelligence systems is forecast to grow from $50 billion in 2020 to over $300 billion by 2026, a 26.5% compound annual growth rate (CAGR). By 2024, most organizations are predicted to leverage codeless development tools for over 30% of their AI and automation initiatives.

At Vantage Point, we exclusively serve Financial Services companies. Our clients place significant emphasis on privacy, security, and compliance in our AI discussions. Our conversations focus on identifying trustworthy tools and determining the best starting point. Our recommendations are tailored to each client's specific needs; however, most recent conversations have led to an initial focus on maximizing return on investment through driving efficiencies in the sales process or generative summarization of content.

As AI becomes increasingly integral across all industries, we believe Salesforce is leading the charge in developing these technologies responsibly and transparently. Salesforce distinguishes itself in its approach to AI by prioritizing transparency and explainability, conducting rigorous testing for biases and fairness, maintaining world-class security and data responsibility, providing visibility into data sources and logic for customers, and fostering a culture of accountability at all levels.

As Salesforce rolls out Copilot, Automated Prospecting, and other AI-driven innovations, it is crucial that they continue to instill trust by upholding security, transparency, and fairness. To learn more about our approach to AI or how we can help optimize your current Salesforce instance, please reach out to us at Vantage Point.