Data Cloud is the fastest growing organically built product in Salesforce’s history (i.e. Salesforce built it themselves, not via acquisitions). It is the foundation that speeds up the connectivity between different ‘clouds’ across the platform, and will now be available for free (up to 10,000 unified profiles).
Taking a brief dip into the history of Marketing Cloud (originally ExactTarget) and Commerce Cloud (originally Demandware), these tools were acquisitions Salesforce made, and incorporated with the core platform via connectors (plug-in-and-play, pre-built APIs). Now, we’re seeing movement that Marketing Cloud and Commerce Cloud are moving on to Data Cloud, and therefore the core platform.
Einstein 1 is a relaunch of the Salesforce platform to create a trusted AI platform that Salesforce customers can use with confidence.
While it’s still going to be a few years before Marketing Cloud and Commerce Cloud are fully migrated on to the core platform, these new capabilities being built on Data Cloud (i.e. the core platform) is a sign that there’s some momentum. Let’s take a look into the 26 generative AI capabilities on the roadmap – with an additional 25+ set to arrive by the end of 2024.
13 New Marketing Cloud AI Capabilities
1. Marketing in Starter
Starter edition comes with the functionality a small business needs to get started with simple sales, service, and marketing.
Available now
2. DC + Account Engagement (formerly Pardot)
DC stands for Dynamic Content, how you can personalize “Account Engagement” marketing assets such as emails, landing pages, forms, and your website, offering suggested content based on prospect information. This is set to get more powerful.
Available now
3. Personalization Insights on Core
Functionality to be confirmed.
Available now
4. Data Spaces in Marketing Cloud
“A data space is a logical partition to organize your data for profile unification, insights, and marketing in Data Cloud…segregate your data, metadata, and processes into categories, such as brand, region, or department, and then enable users to see and work on data only in the context of their category.” (Source)
Available now
5. Advertising Audiences in Marketing Cloud
“Use Marketing Cloud data to target your digital advertising campaigns across various platforms…Reach existing customers with targeted and specific messaging, acquire new customers by creating seed audiences that can be expressed as lookalike audiences on destination networks, suppress existing customers for acquisition campaigns, [and] re-engage unengaged email subscribers.” (Source)
Available now.
6. Einstein Lookalikes in Data Cloud
Lookalike audiences, as the name suggests, creates segments that share the same characteristics to other desirable contacts in your database. “Choose a seed segment similar to your desired reach population to build your look alike segment and define the audience size.” (Source)
Available now
7. Segment Creation in Data Cloud
Marketers are given the ability to create audience segments quickly and improve targeting using natural language prompts to query Data Cloud. Also, AI-driven recommendations guide marketers to generate the most impactful segments that are predicted to increase overall campaign engagement.
This accelerates a significant chunk of what has been time-consuming with regards to segmentation – namely discovering what has worked historically by scouring through rows of data to perform analysis, and writing queries for audience segmentation.
Available in Q3 2023
8. Email Copy Creation
Not only can you generate messaging faster, but the end result reflects what has done well in your organization in past campaigns. This content delivery is powered by Data Cloud.
Available in Q3 2023
9. Subject Line Creation
Adjust and refine the tone of subject lines rapidly. For example, generate three subject line variations, based on top performing emails. The marketer has the decision making power to accept the suggestions, or they can opt to A/B test. This content delivery is powered by Data Cloud.
Available in Q3 2023
10. Typeface Partnership
Typeface delivers generative content (images and layouts) that are specific to your brand guidelines. By interacting with GPT using natural language, not only will marketers gain efficiency in their days, but will also be able to scale content creation to achieve more advanced personalization.
Available in Q3 2023
11. Segment Intelligence in Data Cloud
Segment Intelligence steps in to help marketers understand campaign performance, relative to an audience segment. Prove ROI by automatically connecting first-party data, revenue data (from Salesforce Opportunities), with paid media data (Meta/Google).
Available in Q3 2023
12. Einstein for Account Engagement
Functionality to be confirmed.
Available in Q1 2024
13. Waterfall Segmentation in Data Cloud
“When running a campaign with multiple offers, use a waterfall segment to create a hierarchical structure and prioritize your campaigns. Create a prioritized list of mutually exclusive segments so that an audience member exists in only one segment of your waterfall and receives only one promotional offer. You can also rearrange segments in your waterfall to adjust the priority.” (Source)
Available in Q1 2024
13 New Commerce Cloud AI Capabilities
1. Salesforce Payments
“Offers an easy-to-use payment solution that quickly and seamlessly collects payments. It includes back-end and front-end components that support payment services offered through Stripe, PayPal, and Apple Pay.” (Source)
Available now
2. Order Management
Once a customer has hit the ‘buy’ button, the pressure’s on to meet (or exceed) their expectations in the post–purchase journey, so a strong order management process, now powered by AI, is essential.
Available now
3. Omnichannel Inventory
“Omnichannel Inventory delivers near real-time inventory availability at the location level across all your fulfillment channels.” (Source)
Available now
4. Reorder Portal
“Use a Commerce reorder portal to simplify repeat orders. Configure a cadence or an Einstein Next Best Action component to invite a buyer to the portal.” (Source)
Available now
5. Pay Now
“Provide your customers a seamless payment experience…by creating payment links that direct customers to branded payment pages on all devices, including mobile.” (Source)
How AI will be incorporated into this is to be confirmed.
Available now
6. Generative Product Descriptions
Accelerates building multiple versions of descriptions and translations. With one click of a button, descriptions are rapidly generated from public market data, and past products (i.e. your trusted Salesforce data, powered by Data Cloud). Once the merchandiser reviews and approves, the descriptions are embedded. It can also automatically fill in missing catalog data for merchants and revolutionize the customer experience with auto-generated product descriptions tailored to every buyer.
Available now
7. Copilot for Commerce
Einstein Copilot was announced as part of the Einstein 1 platform. Copilot is the built-in side panel of the user interface, offering what’s similar to the ‘next best action’ form of multi-step action plans where users can select/deselect the follow-up actions to take forward.
Pilot in Q4 2023
8. Commerce Intelligence
Functionality to be confirmed.
Available in Q4 2023
9. Digital Subscriptions
Functionality to be confirmed.
Pilot in Q3 2023
10. Goals-Based Commerce
Automate growth and conversion strategies while maximizing user productivity. This tool empowers businesses to set targets and goals, and then provides actionable insights and proactive recommendations on how to meet them – for example, to improve margins or to increase average order value (AOV).
By typing prompts, Goals-Based Commerce will understand the user’s intent, and recommend storefront design, merchandising setups, and promotions (that can be executed using Marketing Cloud). This is powered by the magic combination of Data Cloud, Einstein AI, and Flow.
Beta in Q3 2023
11. Commerce Concierge
This application experience uses bot technology and generative technology to help brands deliver a 1:1 shopper experience on any messaging channel. Prompt-based exchanges help shoppers discover products effortlessly. Generate a rich messaging experience, for example, by pulling in catalogs without the shopper needing to switch channels. The goal is to make these interactions faster, and more natural.
Available in Q4 2023
12. Generative Page Designer
Not only can you generate pages faster, but the end result reflects what has done well in your organization in the past. Ask Einstein to add components to the layout, adjust and refine the tone of messaging, and more. This content delivery is powered by Data Cloud.
Pilot in Q4 2023
13. Generative SEO Metadata
Functionality to be confirmed.
Available in Q1 2024
Summary
If you work with Marketing Cloud or Commerce Cloud, these new features will hopefully bring you good fortune, even if 13 might be an unlucky number for some. And with 25+ more coming by the end of 2024, users will be spoiled with these generative AI capabilities.
with confidence.
While it’s still going to be a few years before Marketing Cloud and Commerce Cloud are fully migrated on to the core platform, these new capabilities being built on Data Cloud (i.e. the core platform) is a sign that there’s some momentum.