Salesforce has released a preview of its Einstein-based service agent. Einstein is Salesforce’s own AI engine that powers several products, including the Einstein 1 platform and Einstein Copilot.
The new “autonomous” Einstein Service Agent, part of Salesforce Service Cloud, can be set up using the Einstein 1 platform. Ryan Nichols, chief product officer for Salesforce Service Cloud, described it as similar to choosing an LLM to create a new copilot.
To create a custom Einstein service agent for an enterprise, developers create a new copilot on the Einstein 1 platform, specifying a name and purpose, and then expose it to a service topic. Once the service topic is mapped and the LLM is selected, developers can then assign knowledge-based tasks to the agent, Nichols added.
Salesforce explains that this type of knowledge-based work makes agents autonomous, allowing agents or chatbots to perform tasks without human intervention, differentiating them from programmed, general chatbots or service agents.
One of the key differences between traditional predictive chatbots and Einstein Service Agent is that it can understand the user’s intent based on LLM, according to Keith Kirkpatrick, research director at Pew Group. Incorporating generative AI, or LLM, significantly improves customer interactions by improving summarization, two-way communication, contextual awareness, and intent, according to Siddhata Sharad, director at technology consulting firm Western Monroe.
But Nichols also pointed out that the service agent effectively uses the same brain as the Einstein Copilot, so there’s no difference between the two other than developers adding tasks as part of the agent’s workflow.
However, analysts say that Einstein Service Agent is neither new nor unique.
Salesforce’s announced “autonomous” chatbot for Service Cloud isn’t the first of its kind, just as it claimed to have the “world’s first generative AI for CRM” with Einstein GPT, said Cameron Marsh, principal analyst at Newcloth Research. “Competitors including Zendesk and ServiceNow have already introduced similar autonomous capabilities that can resolve customer queries without human intervention,” he said.
The use and expansion of autonomous bots also raises concerns, particularly when it comes to cost, despite the technology’s potential to reduce human labor and deliver faster customer service, Marsh said. “We’ve seen many companies successfully achieve similar results by adding workflow steps to their existing chatbots, while avoiding opaque, usage-based costs,” he added. “Trust is another key barrier to companies embracing autonomous service agents.”
Einstein Service Agent, which is scheduled to be generally available later this year, can be deployed across self-service portals and messaging channels, including WhatsApp, Apple Messages for Business, Facebook Messenger, and SMS. Salesforce added that conversations can also be handed off to a human if the inquiry is off-topic or out of scope for Einstein Service Agent.
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