Salesforce unveils 3 new Einstein-powered enhancements for Sales Cloud

Salesforce’s Einstein mascot

Salesforce is making its Einstein layer of artificial intelligence earn his keep, according to today’s announcement of enhanced capabilities for the company’s Sales Cloud.

Three new features are now available: Einstein Forecasting, Einstein Opportunity Scoring and Einstein Email Insights. For a theoretical physicist, Einstein sure seems to know a lot about sales.

Einstein Forecasting uses data mining and machine learning on historical data, seasonal factors and team behaviors to forecast sales for teams and managers, up to the level of CMO:

Previously, Salesforce SVP of Sales Cloud Product Management Will Moxley told me, the Sales Cloud offered projections based on each sales rep’s self-prediction and not on history and behaviors, but less than half of deals closed as expected.

The new Opportunity Scoring similarly uses machine learning to look at the history of sales transactions, meetings and email interactions in order to determine a rating for a given opportunity. Before, Moxley said, the platform only offered lead scoring; a lead becomes an opportunity when sales has qualified it and assigned resources.

And Email Insights prioritizes sales reps’ emails according to the most important, such as a customer requesting a meeting. Moxley said that, previously, the Sales Cloud did not prioritize emails, although it did issue notifications of opportunities, such as correspondences with a new lead.

About The Author

Barry Levine

Barry Levine covers marketing technology for Third Door Media. Previously, he covered this space as a Senior Writer for VentureBeat, and he has written about these and other tech subjects for such publications as CMSWire and NewsFactor. He founded and led the web site/unit at PBS station Thirteen/WNET; worked as an online Senior Producer/writer for Viacom; created a successful interactive game, PLAY IT BY EAR: The First CD Game; founded and led an independent film showcase, CENTER SCREEN, based at Harvard and M.I.T.; and served over five years as a consultant to the M.I.T. Media Lab. You can find him at LinkedIn, and on Twitter at xBarryLevine.