Meet Salesforce's AI-Powered Customer Service Agent,
Einstein. The software provider says Einstein will be a chatbot that's actually smart. Here's how it could help your business.
By Ben Sherry, Staff reporter
Workplace software provider Salesforce has formally announced Einstein Service Agent, the company's first-ever autonomous AI agent. Salesforce said in a press release that it's designed to "make conventional chatbots obsolete," and that all of Einstein Service Agent's interactions with a business' customers will be grounded in proprietary data. This data can be used to customize the agent's tone of voice, determine how it answers questions, and when to transfer to a human agent.
According to a report from Salesforce, 61 percent of customers would prefer to resolve their customer service problems without having to speak to a human agent, but many have been burned by shoddy chatbots in the past, with 68 percent of customers saying they won't use a company's chatbot again if they have a bad experience.
Salesforce says that the big problem with today's chatbots is that most can only respond to queries with pre-written answers. These older text chatbots are designed as conversation trees, with a set number of predetermined paths branching off from each other. Salesforce claims these conversation trees can be cumbersome to design and maintain, and they naturally can't solve all problems that a customer might need help with.
Salesforce says its Einstein Service Agent, built on Einstein 1, the company's AI platform, doesn't need to be pre-programmed with a map for interacting with customers. Instead, each agent is given access to the company data relevant for doing its job. For example, a company that sells clothes would give its agent access to its catalog, return and exchange policies, and customer purchase history. With this information, the chatbot would be able to automatically verify a customer's recent purchase, listen to their complaint, and make an informed judgment call about whether to grant a refund. The chatbot can even be directed to attempt upselling higher-cost items to customers.
Salesforce also says that unlike current-generation chatbots, which can take hours or days to set up, Einstein Service Agent "can be turned on in minutes with its out-of-the-box templates, Salesforce components, and the LLM of choice." Salesforce says OpenAI's GPT-4o will be the agent's "primary LLM," but that the ability for businesses to customize and bring their own LLMs (Large Language Models) is "being considered for later releases."
Einstein Service Agent is currently only available to a select number of businesses in beta, although a global rollout is expected later this year, with pricing details still to be determined. One of those businesses is restaurant reservation company OpenTable, whose senior vice president of global customer success, George Pokorny, said in a statement that "Einstein Service Agent's speed and accuracy in handling customer inquiries is promising. It understands and responds like a human, adhering to our diverse, country-specific guidelines. I can see it becoming an integral part of our service team, freeing our human agents to tackle higher value issues."
Image: Salesforce.
