The News: On May 6, Salesforce announced Unified Knowledge, the company’s new solution that is designed to integrate organizational knowledge resources from disparate third-party systems within an organization into Salesforce. As this data is integrated into Salesforce Data Cloud, agents can access it, enabling this aggregated knowledge to help deliver accurate, relevant generative AI content that can assist in the delivery of faster, more personalized customer experiences.
You can read the press release announcing the news on the Salesforce website.
Salesforce Announces Unified Knowledge Solution for Service Agents
Analyst Take: Salesforce announced Unified Knowledge, which is designed to enable AI models to leverage knowledge articles both within Salesforce Data Cloud, as well as in third-party sources managed by the organization, such as Microsoft SharePoint or Google Drive, or even outside the organization. The goal is to ensure that Salesforce’s generative AI offering, Einstein for Service, is able to leverage data and insights from wherever they reside, by creating a more sophisticated and comprehensive dataset.
Ultimately, the goal of Unified Knowledge is to ensure that AI models, whether deployed in a full self-service approach, or in an assistive capacity to human agents, are able to incorporate the richest corpus of data, ensuring relevant, accurate, and timely answers.
Key Features of Unified Knowledge
Developed in partnership with Zoomin Software, the primary use case for Unified Knowledge is Service Cloud, which will help agents to provide better service to customers by providing more detailed and relevant knowledge based on the particular interaction and scenario. However, Unified Knowledge can also be integrated and applied to other Salesforce applications, including Sales Cloud, Health Cloud, Financial Services Cloud and Field Service apps.
The solution includes the following specific features:
Knowledge Answers within Bots: This tool is designed to automatically generate responses to customer queries via a bot that leverages information contained in a company’s internal and external knowledge base. For example, the tool can leverage internal data, such as customer journey information and sentiment, as well as data from external sources, such as product details provided by manufacturers, to provide answers that are relevant and timely.
Einstein Copilot for Mobile Workers: Einstein Copilot and Unified Knowledge are designed to aid mobile workers, by letting them ask questions and receive immediate answers sourced from the entirety of a company’s organizational knowledge. For example, a technician encountering difficulty installing a Wi-Fi router can utilize Copilot to troubleshoot the issue in real-time, leveraging both internal data as well as data provided by the router manufacturer.
Search Answers: Instead of being restricted to organizational knowledge to provide an answer, the tool enables the organization to pull in additional data from third-party sources to augment and enhance the ability of agents and consumers to quickly find answers to problems or queries.
Leveraging Generative AI and Data to Create a Valued Assistant
Much has been said and written about the power of generative AI to transform the service and support industry, with deflection of first-call, routine tasks noted as a primary use case for most organizations. However, there are many tasks and activities that still require a human, and enterprises are seeking ways to further empower those human agents with more timely, relevant, and accurate information so they can serve their customers more quickly, efficiently, and consistently.
The ability to incorporate and integrate third-party knowledge sources is another step along the journey of making actionable information available immediately to stakeholders. The current version of Unified Knowledge is being positioned as a starting point, with future enhancements around grounding based on customer attributes, specific products or use cases likely to arrive throughout the year. Enhancements such as these likely will help provide a higher degree of personalization, which is going to become table stakes for service organizations and departments.
Ultimately, the goal is to help generative AI tools access the most relevant information available, so that it can be combined with the rich customer data already held within Salesforce, resulting in the delivery of timely, relevant, and accurate answers that can help both human agents and customers.
Disclosure: The Futurum Group is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of The Futurum Group as a whole.
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Author Information
Keith Kirkpatrick is VP & 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.
