What to Expect from Einstein GPT
Salesforce Einstein Meets GPT
ChatGPT has taken the world by storm, reaching around 100 million subscribers only two months after its release. It has gained broad appeal over other natural language processors (NLPs) by working as a friendly know-it-all with decent conversation skills.
OpenAI developed ChatGPT, training it with “a massive corpus of text data … from a variety of sources such as books, articles, and websites.” They taught the “Chat” part how to converse in natural language. “GPT” refers to a “Generative Pre-trained Transformer,” defined as follows:
Generative means that it can create content.
Pre-trained means that AI experts have trained it to understand something.
Transformer refers to its neural network architecture.
Salesforce announced Einstein GPT at TrailblazerDX 2023, which will integrate GPT’s generative artificial intelligence technology with Einstein. While ChatGPT is pre-trained in the art of conversation, Salesforce will pre-train Einstein GPT in the business of customer relationship management (CRM), including its data. This training will extend Einstein’s artificial intelligence platform to make Salesforce customers more productive.
A Glimpse into the Future
Salesforce demonstrated Einstein GPT at TrailblazerDX 2023, showing it
Composing an email to a contact including new account information
Writing a knowledge article based on a Service Cloud chat
Creating a portal landing page in Experience Builder for marketing
Writing an Apex class to retrieve ten contact records
Why wait for Einstein GPT? For example, A sales rep could compose a customer email with ChatGPT now by
Copying and pasting the customer and account information into ChatGPT.
Having ChatGPT write the message.
Copying and pasting the message into Salesforce for delivery.
Similarly, a service user could have ChatGPT create a knowledge article, and a marketing manager could have it compose landing page content if they prompt ChatGPT with enough information. In all cases, the user has to go through a lot of steps to manually copy and paste information back and forth between Salesforce.
More importantly, OpenAI advises against putting confidential information into ChatGPT, where it could leak out. Einstein GPT will separate each customer’s generated knowledge from other customers, as it does with their data.
Within an organization, Einstein GPT should respect sharing rules and permissions. For example, a demonstration at TrailblazerDX showed Einstein GPT posting a list of top opportunities on a Slack channel. Only a user with access to all opportunities could have Einsteing GPT generate the list.
Salesforce has not given a general availability date for Einstein GPT for good reason. Integrating CRM information and Einstein predictions with GPT while enforcing org knowledge isolation and access control will take substantial effort. It should pay huge dividends in the future, as shown the the demonstrations.
A Speculative Roadmap
How will Einstein GPT emerge from Salesforce? Customers would love to have everything demonstrated in TrailblazerDX available immediately but have a greater need to keep their generated knowledge in their org and subject to access control.
The following roadmap shows how Salesforce could roll out Einstein GPT in stages to provide some GPT benefits in the short term while it works on pre-training Einstein GPT with customer data. It is not a Salesforce roadmap - any similarities to a Salesforce Einstein GPT roadmap are coincidental.
Version 1 - Communication and Software Development
A first version of Einstein GPT could assist with communication and software development tasks. It would not be pre-trained with an organization’s data or Einstein predictions. It would eliminate copying and pasting from ChatGPT, generate natural language text and provide suggestions for improving written communication on a task-by-task basis. This version could also assist Apex developers, by generating code and skeletal test classes.
Version 2 - Industry-specific Training
Salesforce would train a second version of Einstein GPT on publicly available industry information to improve its ability to provide domain-specific insights and recommendations. It could provide industry trends and insights to help businesses make informed decisions. This version of Einstein GPT could also help identify potential business risks and opportunities.
Version 3 - The Next Generation Knowledge Base
A third version of Einstein GPT would realize the promise of the Einstein GPT demonstrations at TrailblazerDX 2023. Each customer would have a rich knowledge base featuring a GPT model pre-trained with their Salesforce data, knowledge, and Einstein predictions. It could help with data analysis and provide insights into customer behavior.
Version 4 - A Strategic Assistant
A fourth version of Einstein GPT could serve as a strategic assistant through deeper training in an organization’s values, mission, and strategic goals. This version of Einstein GPT could improve decision-making by offering recommendations and insights based on industry trends and business objectives. It could help an organization create meaningful content based on its communication standards. It could also enhance Apex code generation with training on the org’s development style.
The Tip of the Intelligent Iceberg
The Einstein GPT demonstrations at TrailblazerDX 2023 touched on several compelling content creation scenarios. Once Salesforce customers have Einstein GPT trained on their org, it will help them find meaningful institutional knowledge, create content and enrich communications with customers and partners via Slack and email.
As Einstein GPT learns more about an organization and its industry, it can offer additional benefits of identifying growth opportunities, providing insights into market trends, and offering recommendations based on business objectives.
Einstein GPT will also provide technical benefits, assisting Apex developers with code from specifications, and creating scaffolding for test classes.
Einstein GPT will make boost Salesforce organizations’ intelligence, taking creativity and productivity to new heights.