Salesforce Launches Einstein Service Agent to Enhance Customer Service Interaction

July 18, 2024 — Salesforce has announced Einstein Service Agent, Salesforce’s first fully autonomous AI agent. Einstein Service Agent makes conventional chatbots obsolete with its ability to understand and take action on a broad range of service issues without preprogrammed scenarios, helping make customer service far more efficient.

Unlike traditional chatbots — which can only handle specific queries that have been explicitly programmed into their system and don’t understand context or nuance — Einstein Service Agent is intelligent and dynamic. Built on the Einstein 1 Platform, Einstein Service Agent interacts with large language models (LLMs) by analyzing the full context of the customer’s message and then autonomously determining the next actions to take.

It uses generative AI to create conversational responses — grounding its responses in a company’s trusted business data, including Salesforce CRM data — tailored to a company’s brand voice, tone, and guidelines with a few clicks. For service organizations, this means they can offload a large number of tedious inquiries that bog down their productivity so they can focus on tasks that require a human touch. For customers, this means they get the answers they need much faster because they no longer need to wait for human agents.

Einstein Service Agent is standing ready 24/7 to communicate with customers in natural language, respond across self-service portals and messaging channels, and perform tasks proactively while operating within clear guardrails that companies can define using the Einstein 1 Platform. And when more complicated, high-touch issues arise, requiring escalation to a human worker based on the parameters set by the company, Einstein Service Agent performs the handoff quickly and easily.

Currently in pilot and generally available later this year, Einstein Service Agent can be set up in minutes with user-friendly interfaces, pre-built templates, and low-code actions and workflows.

“Salesforce is delivering a future where human and digital agents join forces to improve the customer experience,” said Service Cloud General Manager Kishan Chetan. “Einstein Service Agent, our first fully autonomous AI agent, will not just complete service jobs on its own; it will augment how human agents work and completely transform how service teams operate, making them far more efficient and productive. We are reimagining customer service for the AI era.”

Studies show most companies use chatbots today, but 81% of customers would rather wait to speak to a live agent because the current generation of chatbots aren’t meeting their expectations and the experience can be frustrating. Yet, 61% of customers say they’d rather use self-service to resolve simple issues, underscoring an opportunity and need to deliver more intelligent, autonomous agents powered by generative AI.

“Einstein Service Agent’s speed and accuracy in handling customer inquiries is promising,” said George Pokorny, SVP of Global Customer Success at OpenTable. “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.”

About Salesforce

Salesforce empowers companies of every size and industry to connect with their customers through the power of data + AI + CRM + trust. For more information about Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), visit: www.salesforce.com.

Source: Salesforce