AI Tool Selection: Organizations are overwhelmed with the volume of generative artificial intelligence (genAI) tools in the market today. Sequoia and Meritech Capital released the latest version of their AI50 in April of 2023. The map visualizes their top 50 privately held companies in the AI space. Since the updated version was released, a large volume of generative AI tools have come onto the market. Organizations are asking, how do we select the right AI tools? Picking the right tools can be overwhelming, though it doesn’t have to be.

Source: Sequoia and Meritech Capital AI50 Map 2023

Salesforce Simplifies the Selection Process

Salesforce solves this problem for its customers by carefully curating trusted genAI tools that complement Salesforce workflows. While the genAI space can feel like the wild, wild west, Salesforce’s genAI capability stack is geared toward internal and external user workflows. The capabilities are intentional. Here is a sampling of some of the trusted capabilities available to Salesforce users and a pain point they can solve:

1. Einstein Conversation Insights – Sales users are spending too much time summarizing calls with their customers.
2. Sales GPT – Sales reps want to spend less time crafting branded emails to their customers.
3. Service Next Best Action – Customer support agents are not sure what steps to take to help the customer during a call.
4. Einstein Bots with Natural Language Processing – Our current chat bot only works from a menu of items. Website visitors want to ask it questions.

How to Select the Right AI Tools

Perficient’s clients are partnering with our Salesforce practice and Generative AI Lab to understand the genAI landscape. We help our clients select the correct tools to empower their internal and external user workflows. A key message we share with our clients and partners is organizations do not have to pick between tools. Groups need to select the best fit, trusted tools for their prioritized use cases. Leaders commonly ask our team, “Do we pick Writer, OpenAI, or Salesforce Sales GPT?” Our answer: You can pick all of them.

The real question is, which tool or set of genAI tools will be the most strategic fit for the pain point you’re trying to solve? Tool analysis does not have to be a ‘this OR that’ equation. Start with ‘this AND that’.

Here is a sampling of items to consider when selecting genAI tools for your organization:

1. Use case alignment – does the tool align with your prioritized use cases?
2. Human in-the-loop – does the tool provide an opportunity for a human to validate the responses before a customer sees it?
3. Ability to customize and align to your brand – does the tool allow you to build in your brand voice?
4. Security and output accuracy – is there transparency in how the tool stores and interprets information? How accurate are the outputs?

Next Steps

Focus on aligning your genAI tools with use cases, instead of trying to select one over the other. Organizations can work with their trusted consulting partner and their Salesforce Account Executives to understand what capability or set of tools to use in order to address their use cases. If an organizationally-aligned strategic roadmap of use cases has not been built, reach out to our team today. Our team is currently scheduling Trusted AI Workshops and Einstein Readiness Assessments with our client as we head into 2024