We’re in an age where data is becoming more important than ever. This was always going to be the case, but the recent emergence of Generative AI seems to have sped up this importance quite drastically. Data loss or corruption can happen for a variety of reasons, including human error, system failures, and natural disasters. By having a backup plan in place, businesses can minimize the impact of data loss or corruption.
Many organizations believe that their Salesforce data is automatically backed up in the cloud and can be easily accessed if something goes wrong. However, this is not always the case. Salesforce does offer a (recently released) Salesforce backup tool, which is available at an additional cost and offers the ability to back up and restore your Salesforce data. In some cases, however, organizations may want to use a third-party backup solution to protect their data, especially if they want their data backed up in a separate system to Salesforce.
What Is Generative AI?
Before we go any further, let’s address the elephant in the room. What is generative AI? Generative AI is a type of artificial intelligence that can create new content, such as images, text, or music based on existing data. The quality of the generated content is directly related to the quality of the data the model is trained on. In short, data is essential for generative AI because it provides the model with the knowledge and understanding it needs to generate new content that is both accurate and creative.
In this article, we will be focusing on large language models (LLMs). These are a type of generative AI used to generate new text, such as email drafts, code, and scripts. This can be used for tasks such as content creation, marketing, and product development.
What Is Einstein GPT?
Einstein GPT is an AI model created by Salesforce which sits directly within the CRM. It combines public and private AI models with CRM data so that users can ask natural-language prompts (i.e. conversational questions) directly within Salesforce CRM. This results in AI-generated content that is delivered and continuously adapts to changing customer information and needs – hugely time-saving for users. Einstein GPT includes the Trust Layer, which is a new industry standard for trusted enterprise AI that allows you to benefit from generative AI, while also being reassured about data privacy and security.
There are many products that make use of this AI model, including Sales GPT for sales, Service GPT for service, Marketing GPT for marketers, and Apex GPT for developers.
What Does My CRM Data Have to Do With This?
Your data is absolutely key to your business in general, and it’s fundamental to ensuring Einstein GPT works effectively for your business. This makes having a data backup solution more important than ever, as I will illustrate in the following examples:
Example 1: Sales GPT
Sales GPT is going to revolutionize the way sales teams operate, helping them close deals faster and more accurately through an efficient stream of communication with customers or prospects.
The Sales GPT-powered email feature enables you to effortlessly generate personalized and impactful emails in large quantities, making it ideal for prospecting, meeting follow-ups, proposal submissions, and more.
With call summaries, your sales representatives or business development teams can save time and enhance their follow-through by automatically summarizing key mentions, transcripts, and action items from previous calls. In addition, the Sales Assistant acts as a central hub, assisting you in meeting preparation and offering valuable selling guidance.
But what if you suffer data loss without a backup solution?
For example, you have a salesperson who is making full use of the Sales GPT features. They are generating personalized emails, summarizing their calls on deals, and using Sales Assistant to prepare for meetings with potential clients.
There is then an incident and some Contact and Opportunity records are lost or data is altered, which all happen to be in this salesperson’s territory. Suddenly, the emails they are generating may go to the wrong address or contain the wrong information, their logged call details are gone, and they aren’t able to effectively prepare for sales meetings. This would negatively impact the customer experience, potentially cause data leaks, and reduce overall trust in the relationship.
Example 2: Service GPT
Likewise, Service GPT will revolutionize the way service teams operate, giving a much greater customer experience. Service GPT can be used to generate personalized responses that are tailored to the specific needs and interests of each customer. This can help to improve customer satisfaction and reduce the number of escalations.
It can be used to create knowledge articles that are accurate and up to date. This can help agents to find the information they need quickly and easily, and it can also help customers to self-service their issues. Service GPT can also be used to generate case wrap-up summaries that provide a clear and concise overview of the case. This can help agents to track the progress of cases and ensure that all issues are resolved.
You can see where this is going… What happens if you suffer data loss without a backup solution? How is that going to affect your support teams and customers?
For example, your service reps are making full use of the Service GPT features. They are using it to generate personalized responses to cases opened by your customers and generate wrap-up summaries once the issues are resolved.
A new integration is then set up which isn’t tested thoroughly enough, and in turn, accidentally deletes a large amount of Contract and Product data. All of a sudden, your case responses won’t be accurate and you’ll quickly get some very unhappy customers.
Example 3: Your Apex Code
The beauty of Apex GPT is that it learns from your existing code base so that when you ask it to write some code, it does so using your code as a starting point. If you format things in a certain way or do certain things in your code, Apex GPT will take this into account when writing code for you.
But what if some of your code was accidentally changed or deleted? Without a backup solution, this could cause a massive problem with the LLM being trained. If a significant amount of data is lost, the LLM will have less data to learn from, which can lead to decreased accuracy.
Or worse, if the lost data does not represent the overall dataset, the LLM may become biased toward the remaining data. This can lead to the LLM making inaccurate predictions or generating text that is not representative of the real world.
For example, you may have recently started changing your code to adhere to best practices that weren’t necessarily followed before. If you suddenly lost a lot of this data, the LLM would begin to learn the bad habits from your previous code that wasn’t adhering to best practices.
Backup Solutions + Generative AI
A backup solution is vital when it comes to generative AI. Data and metadata loss can occur at any time. Whether it’s due to human error, hardware failure, or natural disaster, data loss is a real possibility. If the data that a generative AI model (in this case, Einstein GPT) is trained on is lost, the model will not work as intended and some of the above examples may occur. Therefore, you should always have a backup plan that includes the following:
- Regularly backing up Salesforce data and metadata
- Storing backups in a secure location
- Testing backups to ensure they are recoverable
Veeam is your ultimate companion for implementing your backup plan. Veeam Backup for Salesforce minimizes the potential for data and metadata loss caused by human error, integration challenges, or other situations that could lead to Salesforce data loss. Their specialized Salesforce backup solution offers comprehensive coverage, empowering you to swiftly and confidently recover from any data loss incidents.
Summary
Salesforce data and metadata are essential to businesses of all sizes. However, many organizations don’t feel the need to back up their Salesforce data regularly. This is a mistake, as data loss or corruption can have a devastating impact on a business.
Salesforce hosts the infrastructure for its platform, but that does not mean that businesses are not responsible for protecting their data. It is up to each organization to implement a robust backup and recovery plan to protect their Salesforce data.
By taking these steps, businesses can protect their data and ensure they are prepared for any eventuality. And with generative AI on the horizon, protecting your data is now more important than ever.
Watch an on-demand demo or start a free 30-day trial of Veeam Backup for Salesforce to see how you can confidently protect your Salesforce data and metadata – all while ensuring business continuity and peace of mind in the face of any data-related challenges or security threats.