NEW YORK - In a significant move to advance the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in business, Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) and IBM (NYSE:IBM) have announced a partnership to integrate advanced AI capabilities and autonomous agents into Salesforce’s platform. The collaboration aims to bolster decision-making, productivity, and efficiency for customers, particularly in highly regulated industries.
The partnership will see the integration of Salesforce's Agentforce with IBM’s watsonx, including the generative AI product watsonx Orchestrate. This integration is designed to enable customers to build and customize AI agents that can independently interact with various enterprise tools and platforms, facilitating the automation of routine or complex tasks.
IBM plans to develop new pre-built agents for specific business challenges using watsonx Orchestrate, which leverages IBM’s Granite models optimized for targeted business domains and use cases. The agents will be capable of orchestrating insights across applications and custom data sources to identify sales leads, fast-track sales training, improve banking onboarding experiences, and enhance customer engagement in manufacturing and telecom billing processes.
Furthermore, the partnership will extend data integration capabilities, allowing joint customers to harness mainframe datasets to power AI use cases on the Salesforce platform. This includes data from IBM Z mainframe databases and files, as well as Db2 databases on distributed platforms. IBM will be the first Zero Copy partner to enable data flow between IBM Z and the Salesforce Cloud architecture.
In addition to data integration, customers will soon be able to leverage a new integration with watsonx.ai to power their AI use cases within Salesforce Model Builder. This will allow access to and deployment of customized large language models (LLMs), including third-party models as well as IBM’s Granite family of foundation models.
IBM Consulting will play a pivotal role in helping enterprises select, customize, deploy, and scale AI agents to address specific industry challenges faster and at scale. The consulting arm of IBM will utilize its AI-powered delivery platform, IBM Consulting Advantage, to accelerate the value of Agentforce for joint customers.
Salesforce and IBM have emphasized the transformative potential of their expanded partnership, with Salesforce’s Executive Vice President Brian Landsman stating that it sets "a new standard for enterprise innovation in highly regulated industries." Nick Otto, Head of Global Strategic Partnerships at IBM, noted that the partnership is about providing customers with choice and flexibility in leveraging AI across their organizations.
The information for this article is based on a press release statement.
In other recent news, Salesforce has reported several significant developments. The company's second-quarter earnings per share reached $2.56, exceeding the consensus estimate of $2.36 and the previous year's figure of $2.12. The company also reported an 8% increase in sales, primarily driven by a 9% rise in subscription and support revenues.
Salesforce has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Own Company, a provider of data protection and management solutions, for $1.9 billion in cash. This strategic move is expected to bolster Salesforce's data security and compliance capabilities. The deal is slated to close in the fourth quarter of Salesforce's fiscal year 2025.
In analyst notes, Erste Group downgraded Salesforce's stock from Buy to Hold due to projected slower growth. However, Deutsche Bank and CFRA maintained their Buy and Strong Buy ratings respectively.
In partnership news, Salesforce and Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Cloud have expanded their collaboration to develop Salesforce Agentforce Agents, enhancing secure collaboration across Salesforce Customer 360 and Google Workspace applications. Lastly, Salesforce's CFO, Amy Weaver, announced her plans to step down in early 2025, but will assist in the search for her successor. These are the recent developments for Salesforce.
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