Artificial Intelligence / News

Ex-Salesforce CEO’s Startup Launches Voice Agents – $4B Valuation in Sight

By Thomas Morgan

Following his decision to leave Salesforce at the end of 2022, Bret Taylor (alongside former Google executive Clay Bavor) has now announced the launch of “Sierra Speaks”– a conversational AI agent capable of answering phone calls on behalf of businesses.

By introducing an agent that can handle real-time conversations and troubleshoot issues efficiently for customers, this innovative tool aims to put an end to those frustrating customer service calls. 

What Is Sierra?

After six and a half years at Salesforce (where he was Co-CEO during his last year alongside mentor Marc Benioff), Taylor wanted to get back to his “entrepreneurial roots”. This led to the founding of Sierra just two months after leaving the CRM giant.

The motivation behind Sierra was to create artificial intelligence chatbots specifically designed to meet business needs and – ultimately – to revolutionize customer service. 

For example, audio trailblazer Sonos has enjoyed the benefits of Sierra’s capabilities with the online chat platform, Sonos AI Agent. Starting with basic setup tasks and quickly progressing to more complex issues, the agent can handle countless nuanced situations and is held to the same high standards as an experienced customer service representative. Sierra also works with mattress company Casper and the satellite radio company SiriusXM.

Sierra Speaks promises to take customer service to the next level, working natively with company data to ensure a seamless experience when calling customers. Here are some key features of Sierra’s brand-new tool:

  • Natural Conversation Quality: Sierra Speaks will prioritize tone and cadence to create a conversation that feels natural, even responding to interruptions and sentiment shifts. It will recognize how to adjust to customer needs and will escalate to a human agent if prompted.
  • Company-Specific Customization: The agent will understand your brand, product names, and technical terms, whilst remembering customer details such as birthdays or milestones.
  • Efficient Multitasking: The agent will be able to retrieve relevant information and access internal systems to offer solutions for customers, such as the nearest return centers.
  • Instant Response for Better CX: The agent can foster immediate customer interactions, allowing companies to maintain stronger relationships with their customers.

The company has enjoyed a lot of short-term success, which is well reflected in the level of investment the startup has received. Per Fortune, Sierra raised $110M in February in a round led by Sequoia Capital and Benchmark, and is now in talks to secure over $4B in funding led by growth-stage investor Greenoaks Capital, which could triple the company’s valuation.

This level of investment is not only a testament to the rapid growth of Sierra, but also the belief in how conversational AI could change customer service as we know it. However, the startup has entered a competitive market, with the likes of Salesforce, OpenAI, and Intercom all vying for dominance in AI-driven customer service.

Why Did Taylor Leave Salesforce?

Although initial reports suggested that Taylor left Salesforce on good terms, The Wall Street Journal later revealed that there may have been tension between the co-CEOs before Taylor’s departure:

“I’m extremely sad to see him go […] You can’t keep a wild tiger in a cage.” Marc Benioff, CEO, Salesforce

According to WSJ, Benioff had concerns about Taylor balancing his roles as Salesforce CEO and Twitter board chair, perhaps spending too much time away from the engineering side of the business.

Furthermore, according to former Salesforce executive, Anshu Sharma, it became difficult to work out which CEO employees should be reporting to:

“What is a co-CEO and why do you need one? Well, I mean, you have a CEO and four other CXOs. What does a co-CEO wake up in the morning and do that’s not already being done by a CEO?”

While I don’t want to lean too far into conspiracy, it sounds like Taylor’s decision to depart may not simply have been a case of returning to entrepreneurship, but also about falling out of favor at Salesforce. Either way, this change has led to the creation of a real contender on the AI landscape. 

Summary

Conversational AI promises to be an exciting next step in developing the customer service experience – it will be interesting to see how it performs once it rolls out.

Make sure you leave your thoughts in the comments below!

The Author

Thomas Morgan

Thomas is a Content Editor at Salesforce Ben.

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