Once again heavily invested in the AI ​​track, SaaS giant Salesforce expands the scale of AIGC venture capital fund

Text | Li Xueman

On June 12, Salesforce announced through its official website the launch of a new AI Cloud service. Meanwhile, Salesforce also said in a statement that its venture capital fund focused on generative AI will increase to $500 million from the $250 million announced in March.

The emergence of ChatGPT has refreshed people’s understanding of the development of artificial intelligence. As a global heavyweight enterprise management system platform, how could Salesforce miss this technology feast. Let’s take a look at Salesforce’s actions in the AIGC field.

Salesforce products fully embrace AIGC

Introducing ChatGPT functionality on Slack.

In March of this year, Salesforce announced that the company was introducing OpenAI’s chatbot ChatGPT into the office instant messaging application Slack. At that time, users can use ChatGPT introduced by Slack to summarize conversations, research topics, and even draft replies. Noah Desai Weiss, chief product officer at Slack, believes this will give customers new superpowers by helping them tap into the collective knowledge of their organization’s channel profiles.

Salesforce didn’t stop with the introduction of ChatGPT.

On March 7, 2023, Salesforce announced the launch of Einstein GPT, the world’s first generative AI for CRM. Einstein GPT By bringing transformative generative AI technology to Salesforce CRM, customers will be able to rapidly generate AI-created content in every sales, service, marketing, commerce and IT interaction.

Additionally, Einstein GPT combines Salesforce’s proprietary AI models and trusted data from the Salesforce Data Cloud with generative AI technology from an ecosystem of partners, including OpenAI, to deliver real-time, time-saving, highly personalized ization and hyperscale experiences. The advent of Einstein GPT can be said to be an important milestone in Salesforce’s artificial intelligence journey.

On June 12, a new AI Cloud service was launched.

The AI ​​Cloud service will integrate the company’s technologies including Einstein, Data Cloud, Tableau, Flow and MuleSoft to deliver trusted, open, enterprise-ready generative AI.

Salesforce said that this AI cloud startup package is priced at US$360,000 per year. This service can closely combine enterprise data with AI technology to achieve more intelligent business integration and management, and help companies better understand their customers. demand, thereby providing better customer experience and productivity.

The launch of AI Cloud service is another important layout of Salesforce in the field of artificial intelligence.

First of all, AI technology has become an important trend in the digital and intelligent transformation of enterprises, and Salesforce, as a leading global enterprise-level CRM platform provider, launching AI Cloud services will enable it to better Provide enterprise users with various automation, intelligence and artificial intelligence related tools and solutions.

Secondly, the launch of AI Cloud services will provide Salesforce customers with more personalized and intelligent business services. By using AI Cloud services, enterprises can gain deeper and more comprehensive insights from their data and take quick reactive actions.

Third, the launch of AI Cloud services will also promote the development and growth of Salesforce in the field of artificial intelligence. Nowadays, with the continuous development and application of artificial intelligence technology, major technology companies regard AI as one of the core technologies of the future. Salesforce’s launch of AI Cloud service shows that the company has also begun to invest heavily in and strengthen research and development in the field of artificial intelligence. and applications.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said, “Artificial intelligence is reshaping our world and transforming business in ways we never imagined, and every company needs to make AI a priority. Matters (AI-first)."

Expand AIGC venture capital fund size to US$500 million

After three months, Salesforce once again took a heavy position in AIGC.

On June 12, Salesforce announced that it would expand its generative AI startup fund to US$500 million. This decision showed Salesforce’s determination to invest heavily in the field of AI. In fact, back in March of this year, Salesforce launched a $250 million venture capital fund focused on “cultivating the next generation of generative AI startups.”

It is reported that in the past few months, Salesforce has invested in four startups, including the high-profile search engine company You.com, AI startup Anthropic, natural language processing (NLP) startup Cohere and relationship management Systems startup Hearth.AI. These investments strengthen Salesforce’s innovation capabilities and competitive advantage in AI.

As we all know, due to the impact of the macro environment, the market value of U.S. SaaS companies has experienced varying degrees of decline in 2022. Salesforce has not been immune. After experiencing a 37% growth in 2020 and a 14% growth in 2021, its stock price has declined. Suffering a 48% plunge in 2022, Salesforce is under pressure from investors. How to reverse growth difficulties, the popular AIGC may be a new trend in the industry.

First of all, Generative AI technology is one of the cutting-edge technologies in the current field of artificial intelligence and has broad application prospects. More and more companies are beginning to realize the commercial value and application prospects of AI technology. The demand for enterprise-level AI is constantly increasing, and Salesforce, as one of the world's leading CRM vendors, can better support and promote the research and development and application of related technologies by expanding the scale of generative AI venture capital funds, and obtain more in the future. business opportunities and market share.

Secondly, As major technology companies attach importance to and invest in artificial intelligence technology, the demand for venture capital in the field of artificial intelligence is also increasing. Salesforce is expanding the scale of its generative AI venture capital fund, not only Promote the development of AI technology and related enterprises, while also finding new opportunities and partners for Salesforce's business in this field.

Thanks to artificial intelligence, Salesforce achieved a good quarterly performance: first-quarter revenue of $8.25 billion, easily exceeding expectations of $8.18 billion; second-quarter revenue is expected to be $8.51 billion to $8.53 billion , analysts expected $8.49 billion.

On May 31, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said that artificial intelligence (AI) has been a boon to the company and will continue to be so in the future.

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