ChatGPT has exploded onto the scene recently and is set to shake up the technology world. It is an AI tool that uses natural language processing to answer questions you ask. Salesforce has been quick to react to this new technology by launching tools like Einstein GPT that uses AI to do things like generate sales emails or wrap up a case.
In this article, I’ll explore if ChatGPT is likely to replace Salesforce architects or if architects are going to adapt to use this to become more productive/efficient in the future.
What Is a Salesforce Architect?
Within the Salesforce ecosystem you have roles like admin, business analyst, marketing, developer, and designer. There is an architect family of roles that include senior positions such as technical architect and solution architect.
Q. What is a Salesforce Architect in 100 words or less?
Think Best Practice
Quite often as a Salesforce Architect you’ll have to think of the best option to implement a particular piece of functionality. Best practice would be to use clicks-not-code where possible as it’s easier to maintain going forward.
If you ask ChatGPT to write code for you, then it will do as it’s asked without thinking about other options (e.g. Flow), or if it’s best practice.
Q. Write Apex code to integrate Salesforce to JIRA
Think Technical Escalation
As an architect, we are often the escalation point if something goes wrong either technically or functionally. This requires problem solving, communication skills and setting customers expectations.
While ChatGPT has no problem providing useful suggestions, these are not always tailored to your specific situation and so are only useful up to a point.
Q. As a Salesforce Architect how should I resolve a technical escalation in 100 words or less?
Think Human
As architects, we should mentor and coach our peers. ChatGPT can provide support here, but personally, you can’t beat one-to-one interactions with a colleague.
Another part of being an architect is about relationships and managing expectations with stakeholders. This involves being honest, actively listening, and embodying the personas of your users to understand their view.
You can get ChatGPT to write user stories (don’t do this!) or tell you what a typical Sales Manager needs from Salesforce but these responses would be generic, without a human element and not set to address the specific challenges of the organization.
Q. What does a typical Sales Manager need from Salesforce in 100 words or less?
Think Roadmap
Architects are often involved in a number of different projects or bigger programs. Part of the role is being able to predict the future in a way. I think of this as If This Then That (IFTTT).
Q. How do you need to adjust Service Cloud for Experience Cloud in 100 words or less?
You can see ChatGPT has provided some solid advice here, but the terminology is a little off!
Think Latest and Greatest
Salesforce has three major releases a year and is currently doing monthly releases for EinsteinGPT.
As an architect it’s important to keep up! What once was a great custom solution, could quickly become technical debt if a new standard feature comes along.
For example, let’s pretend you have a flow that adds permission sets, groups, and queues based on user attributes. When User Access Policies becomes generally available this could become technical debt.
Q. What are User Access Policies in Salesforce in 100 words or less?
ChatGPT struggles to keep up here too, as it returns an answer about how to manage access in general but didn’t know what User Access Policies were!
Responsible Use of AI
I recently attended a Salesforce Event when Pallavi Agarwal opened my eyes to something.
When it comes to AI we all have a responsibility to improve the model.
After all, the AI model is for the benefit of the community so as a member of that community we should provide reactions to remove bias, incorrect info, update terminology, and ultimately provide better responses in the future.
Summary
To bring this article to a close, let’s revisit the original question: Can ChatGPT replace a Salesforce Architect?
In my opinion the answer to this is no. As with all things Salesforce, you need context and a human element when dealing with problems.
However, ChatGPT is a great tool for providing advice or pointers so can certainly provide generic guidance. I think in the near future, it’ll be the norm for architects and AI to work side by side, so we haven’t been replaced just yet!