IBM and Salesforce launch new AI collaboration

UPDATED 09:00 EDT / AUGUST 31 2023

by Maria Deutscher

IBM Corp. and Salesforce Inc. today announced a partnership focused on helping organizations adopt Salesforce’s artificial intelligence services.

In March, Salesforce debuted a suite of generative AI tools called Einstein GPT. The suite is designed to automate business tasks such as creating marketing emails and answering customer support inquiries. Moreover, it includes a large language model that can help developers write code faster.

Through its new partnership with Salesforce, IBM will help joint customers adopt Einstein GPT. The effort will be led by IBM’s consulting division.

The partnership is set to encompass multiple components of Einstein GPT. IBM will help customers adopt Einstein GPT for Marketing, a tool that eases tasks such as creating ad copy and developing website landing pages. The partnership also covers Einstein GPT for Service, which is geared toward customer service teams, as well as several other tools.

IBM said that it will draw on its IBM Garage offering to help companies adopt Salesforce’s generative AI suite. The offering provides access to consulting services, as well as internally-developed software tools. According to the company, IBM Garage can help an enterprise quickly set up an initial “minimum viable product” deployment of a new technology it’s seeking to adopt.

Besides making it easier to adopt Einstein GPT, the partnership announced today also aims to optimize organizations’ Salesforce environments. In particular, IBM said that the goal is to “scale and enhance” customer deployments. It will to that end provide customers with a “suite of AI experience and implementation accelerators.”

One component of that suite is a machine learning tool called IBM Data Classifier. According to the company, the tool is designed to reduce the amount of effort involved in syncing information from one application to another. The ability to move data between applications is necessary for, among other tasks, transferring customer data to Salesforce from third-party software products.

The third focus of IBM’s collaboration with Salesforce is watsonx. Introduced in May, watsonx is an IBM-developed platform that offers access to prepackaged generative AI models and also eases the task of training custom neural networks. The company says the platform can complement Salesforce’s feature set.

“Through our collaboration with Salesforce, we can help empower enterprise clients to scale and accelerate the adoption of generative AI that will support them to meet their business needs,” said Matt Candy, global managing partner at IBM Consulting’s generative AI group.

Until a few years ago, consulting offerings and other professional services accounted for more than half of IBM’s revenue. The enterprise technology giant spun off a significant portion of its professional services business into a company called Kyndryl Holdings Inc. in late 2021. Nevertheless, consulting remains an important component of its value proposition.

IBM’s consulting business generated $5 billion in revenue last quarter, accounting for nearly a third of its total sales. Earlier this year, the company expanded the business by forming a new unit called the Center of Excellence for Generative AI. It’s staffed by more than 1,000 consultants with generative AI expertise.

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