The News: In a briefing for industry analysts, Salesforce product managers discussed the most recent improvements and enhancements to Field Service GPT, which is designed to bring generative AI capabilities to front-line and mobile field service workers. Service GPT offers time- and effort-saving generative AI tools that help workers better prepare for a job, offer useful insights and assistance to help them complete jobs, and then complete the post-job wrap-up quickly and efficiently. Click here for Salesforce’s press release announcing the launch of Service GPT.
Salesforce Announces Field Service GPT for Field Service Workers
Analyst Take: Salesforce is embedding Einstein GPT’s generative AI capabilities across all Salesforce products, and that includes Service GPT, its offering that is specifically targeted at front-line and mobile service workers. Service GPT’s core GPT-based features are designed to address the key points of friction that impact the delivery of many in-person, field-service jobs, by leveraging GPT to surface information and insights, as well as summarizing the actions taken on the job and automatically handling wrap-up and follow-up activity.
Salesforce representatives reiterated that Service GPT, like each of the company’s generative AI tools, is delivered using the Einstein GPT Trust Layer, which provides enterprise-caliber data security and compliance safeguards, ensuring that customer data is not stored outside Salesforce, and prompts and responses are not stored by third-party large language model (LLM) providers and are not used to train their models.
Field Service Workers Are a Natural Fit for Using Generative AI
Due to their work practices and environment, field service workers are a natural fit for generative AI technology. Many of these workers are on the move all day, and are only equipped with a mobile device, making it far more challenging to find and retrieve information, interact with content, and enter wrap-up details after a job has been completed.
Further, field service workers’ skills are generally concentrated on handling the onsite tasks they have been trained to perform, rather than capturing, entering, or summarizing information. By incorporating GPT tools into the platform, these field service workers can spend more time on completing jobs, and less time handling administrative tasks.
Key Features Offered in Field Service GPT
According to Salesforce, field service workers will be able to reap the benefits of GPT in three core ways:
- Mobile Work Briefing: Currently in a pilot phase, field service workers will be automatically served up a mobile work briefing, which includes relevant data related to the job at hand, including the customer information, the task to be completed, the priority level and skill requirements, the inventory required for the job, and any other pertinent details (such as the presence of an angry dog) into a single view, so they can be prepared without needing to look for any information.
- On-Site Knowledge Search: Projected to go into pilot by the winter of 2023, this feature is designed to assist field service workers on site, by letting them query the knowledge base in a natural way, to quickly surface the relevant knowledge article in the field. Although workers are highly trained, they are often called upon to work on very new products or older, discontinued products, and need to quickly reference procedures, parts lists, and other information without having to call back into the dispatch office for assistance.
- Post-Work Summarization: Field service workers have traditionally been tasked with handling all the post-job administrative tasks, from capturing and summarizing what was done on the job, as well as making sure any additional steps (such as scheduling follow-up service appointments) are completed. Because many workers are equipped only with a mobile device, capturing and entering this information can be a tedious practice. Post-Work Summarization (expected to enter a pilot in the winter of 2023) will automatically compose a detailed summary of the job, generated from the field service worker’s inputs that are captured within the mobile app, which includes the task completed, the duration of the job, the parts used, and any other pertinent details, which can then be shared with the customer for signoff, and then sent back to the dispatch office.
Because the field service features are still in pilot, pricing and packaging have yet to be determined.
During the analyst call, Salesforce also indicated that it is considering providing voice-based, or hands-free access to some of the features in Field Service GPT to make it even easier for field service workers to interact with the application while completing a job.
Performance Metrics Will Determine Uptake of Field Service GPT
Salesforce’s announcement of these new generative AI features appears to be a natural fit for workers who are short on time, and are constrained by the devices they use to interact with pertinent data. The features discussed are or will be in a pilot phase throughout 2023, but we would expect that any workflow issues or interface issues will be worked out before the product becomes generally available to all customers.
The main question with not only Salesforce Field Service GPT, but any GPT-enhanced product, is whether an organization will generate a tangible ROI by implementing the product, which will incorporate job-specific metrics like average resolution time and the number of service calls completed, as well as customer experience metrics, such as customer satisfaction (CSAT). Even if the features perform as expected, organizations may be hesitant to widely deploy generative AI tools unless there is an improvement in efficiency and profitability.
Other Insights from The Futurum Group
Einstein Studio: Salesforce Introduces No-Code Model Integration
Salesforce Announces New Commerce Cloud Features
Salesforce Announces General Availability of Embedded Generative AI Tools
Author Information
Keith Kirkpatrick is Research Director, Enterprise Software & Digital Workflows for The Futurum Group. Keith has over 25 years of experience in research, marketing, and consulting-based fields.
He has authored in-depth reports and market forecast studies covering artificial intelligence, biometrics, data analytics, robotics, high performance computing, and quantum computing, with a specific focus on the use of these technologies within large enterprise organizations and SMBs. He has also established strong working relationships with the international technology vendor community and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and events.
In his career as a financial and technology journalist he has written for national and trade publications, including BusinessWeek, CNBC.com, Investment Dealers’ Digest, The Red Herring, The Communications of the ACM, and Mobile Computing & Communications, among others.
He is a member of the Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP).
Keith holds dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in Magazine Journalism and Sociology from Syracuse University.
