Daniel Hoe VP of Marketing for Latin America at Salesforce
On-demand software giant, Salesforce claims to be a pioneer in the use of artificial intelligence. VP of marketing for Latin America, Daniel Hoe states that the company’s AI platform for CRM, Salesforce Einstein, makes more than 80 billion predictions per day through models for marketing, sales, service and e-commerce.
According to the executive, CRM is undergoing a major transformation in the face of the AI and data revolution. In the coming years, we will see deeper integration of this technology into all facets of CRM and Salesforce actively contributing to this future. Hoe reinforces that companies will use AI to personalize each interaction, from marketing to customer service, providing much more individualized and relevant experiences.
In the following interview, he also talks about topics such as privacy and data management.
How do you see the CRM market in the coming years given the AI and data revolution?
Salesforce has been innovating since 1999 by incorporating cloud, mobility, collaboration and AI into CRM, as we launched the first generation of Einstein, our AI platform for CRM, in 2016. The CRM market is undergoing a significant transformation driven by the revolution in AI and data. In the coming years, we will see deeper integration of this technology into all facets of CRM and Salesforce actively contributing to this future. Companies will use AI to personalize every interaction, from marketing to customer service, providing much more individualized and relevant experiences. Furthermore, data analysis will become even more sophisticated, allowing companies to understand not only what happened in the past, but also to anticipate future trends more accurately. Data-driven forecasting will become a central part of CRM strategies. In turn, AI-driven automation will simplify processes, making operations more efficient and freeing up team resources for more strategic activities.
How is AI applied at Salesforce?
Salesforce is a pioneer in artificial intelligence, having opened Salesforce Research in 2014, under the leadership of professionals linked to Stanford University. Since then, Salesforce Einstein, our AI platform for CRM, has made more than 80 billion predictions per day through our models for marketing, sales, service and e-commerce. We recently expanded the scope of Einstein to include generative AI capabilities. Our priority is to offer customers the possibility of leveraging language models for their business processes in a secure and reliable way. To achieve this, we launched the Einstein Trust Layer, which creates a layer of trust between customer data (which is stored in the CRM) and generative AI models. This way, models do not retain customer data and do not learn from this data, protecting customer privacy and security. During Dreamforce, the world’s largest artificial intelligence event, which took place from September 12th to 14th, we announced our next generative AI solutions. One of them is the Einstein 1 Platform, an advanced artificial intelligence and CRM platform that will function as an aggregator of customer data. Another solution announced was Einstein Copilot, our intelligent digital assistant, which will be available in the CRM and will use generative AI to interact with users in natural language. It can answer questions, provide relevant information, and initiate proactive actions based on company data stored in Salesforce Data Cloud.
Do you believe that AI will surpass human capabilities? Why?
We believe that AI is here to help us, not replace us. The vision we have is that humans will use AI to expand their capabilities and that of AI. While AI can process large volumes of data and perform complex calculations in a fraction of the time it would take a human being, we have factors such as creativity, empathy and intuition at our side. I believe they are complementary attributes. The true strength of AI lies in its ability to work collaboratively with us, expanding our abilities, driving innovation and generally improving our lives. Of course, to achieve this, we must take ethics and security into account when developing technology. The fact that decisions made by AI are based on data and algorithms can lead to biased results, which must be carefully monitored and corrected. After all, AI feeds on data from humans themselves, carrying their biases with them. Therefore, we have taken great care to develop and use AI responsibly at Salesforce, always considering the impact on society and seeking an ethical, reliable and safe approach.
Can generative AI now be considered a reliable tool for business?
The next frontier in generative AI is trust and data privacy. Generative AI is a rapidly evolving technology that has demonstrated significant potential in several fields, especially when there is a person operating the technology to evaluate what it suggests. However, I don’t see it as completely reliable for all business scenarios without a human around to evaluate what it proposes. The technology has been successfully applied in certain contexts, such as content creation, computer-aided design, and even the generation of virtual assistants and chatbots. In some of these areas, technology is already quite advanced and can offer reliable and effective results. However, this reliability is still limited in some situations. In highly complex tasks, which involve deep understanding of specific contexts, emotional nuances or highly sophisticated creativity, technology tends to not be as efficient. In the last edition of Dreamforce, there was a very remarkable session with director Spike Lee and actress Viola Davis, in which they discussed that art is a people thing. Furthermore, the reliability of generative AI is also linked to the quality of the data that feeds its language models. If the data used to train the algorithms is not representative or is biased, the results may be inaccurate or even discriminatory. Another problem that must be overcome are the hallucinations of generative AI, which occur when it invents non-existent information. Therefore, it is crucial that companies carefully consider the context and limitations of the technology before massively adopting it into their processes.
What is the objective of Salesforce’s partnership with McKinsey in the field of generative AI?
The strategic partnership aims to unite the expertise of both companies: Salesforce’s advanced technology and CRM knowledge with McKinsey’s expertise in AI and advanced data analysis. Together, the companies seek to accelerate the adoption of generative AI in diverse areas, such as sales, marketing, retail and customer service.
What are the main Salesforce solutions offered to the marketing and advertising market?
Our flagship is Salesforce Marketing Cloud, an end-to-end marketing automation platform. It enables businesses to create personalized marketing campaigns across multiple channels, with integrated solutions for customer journey management, email, mobile, social, web personalization, advertising, content creation and management, and data analytics. The platform covers all imaginable interactions and engagements with customers, in addition to allowing complete campaign structuring. Marketing Cloud will be powered by generative AI functionalities that will allow the automated creation of campaign briefings, email marketing pieces, texts for SMS messages and the interactive segmentation of customer data.
What types of needs and demands do advertisers present when they hire Salesforce?
They look for solutions that help automate the most repetitive tasks in the campaign development process. They also want insights to develop increasingly personalized content, which can be segmented to their audience more accurately, generating increased conversion and return on investment (ROI). Data visualization is another gap in the market, and something much sought after by advertisers. Few solutions work like Salesforce, with the centralization of different data on a single platform and simple and intuitive visualization. This factor allows advertisers to adjust details of their campaigns in real time.
Read the full interview in the November 6, 2023 edition
