Salesforce CPO discusses AI strategy and productivity metrics

Every company in the world is trying to find a way to use artificial intelligence in their ranks, but not all are as well-prepared to meet this challenge as technology giant Salesforce.

The cloud software company is known for products such as the Slack communications app and the Tableau data visualization platform, but it has been experimenting with artificial intelligence for more than a decade, according to a company representative. Today, Salesforce is sharing specific ways its “Einstein” AI bot is impacting employee productivity in its own workforce.

According to the company, integrating Einstein with Slack saved employees 50,000 hours in one business quarter, and the bot answered nearly 370,000 employee questions. Connecting it to Project Basecamp, the company’s project management platform, resolved 88,000 employee requests, speeding up resolution from an average of 48 hours to just 30 minutes. Approximately 85% of employees have used this tool to calculate the best course of action to achieve their career goal. This tool is also involved in the company’s recruitment and onboarding function, Experience Cloud. On this platform, Salesforce claims to have solved 88% of problems that would typically require human intervention, reducing its reliance on technology specialists by 50%.

Fortune spoke with Salesforce Chief People Officer Nathalie Scardino to hear her thoughts on artificial intelligence in the workplace, how to collaborate with other managers, and what she thinks is most important when it comes to HR and new technologies.

“The HR space, with the acceleration of artificial intelligence, is changing the employee experience in a way that I don’t think we’ve ever seen before,” he says. “What I love most is that we know that AI is changing the way we work.”

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

How do you collaborate with other managers on AI initiatives?

The person I work with most often is our CIO, Juan Perez. I think we should be talking every other day at this point. Thanks to his office, we have implemented over 50 AI tools in our organization. At our Dreamforce event last September, we had the opportunity to start talking about the future of work. At that point it was me, our CIO and head of real estate. Because if you think about employee experience, people, places and technology influence employee engagement. That’s why the three of us hold weekly steerco meetings (steering committee meetings) where we discuss key metrics and progress on these implementations.

How are you working to eliminate bias in AI tools?

We have an AI governance board. We make sure it’s ethical and legal and check for potential risks of bias before it’s even published. Our Artificial Intelligence Council has been a significant game-changer and centralized our work – led by the Office for Ethical and Humane Use, which has been in operation for at least five years. We have a head of data and analytics who works on the strategy and analysis of that data, as well as a CIO and people representation.

How to measure which AI tools work best for employees?

We have pretty robust listening strategies and surveys of our employees. Every part of the company has ways to get involved, whether it’s a hackathon or the work that happens through the AI ​​Council. We try to make it easier for employees to provide feedback.

Also, the CIO and CPO relationship is part of our adoption strategy. We have implemented 50 AI tools, but what is the use of each of them? These (Einstein-based tools) are undoubtedly some of the most widely used applications we have seen for AI. But we are constantly wondering what should stay, what should go, what is redundant and what is no longer useful. What new ideas should we look for?

Emma Burleigh
[email protected]

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