The two companies are working together on several areas in the CRM value chain, including the integration of Salesforce offerings for sale via IBM’s consulting business. Credit: amperespy44 / Shutterstock Salesforce and IBM are teaming up to provide generative AI for the enterprise, combining their respective efforts into what the companies hope will be a more attractive package for CRM customers. The partnership, announced on Thursday, will focus on several areas in the CRM value chain, including the integration of Salesforce offerings for sale with IBM’s consulting business. IBM said it will use its Garage digital transformation methodology to help customers implement Salesforce AI technologies such as Sales Cloud and Marketing Cloud. Customers will also be able to access IBM’s Data Classifier tool; it’s designed to simplify data mapping via industry-specific AI models, on their Salesforce-generated data, and to complement Salesforce’s AI tooling with its watsonx AI and data platform. The collaboration should allow enterprises to get genAI working for them more simply and easily, according to Matt Candy, IBM Consulting’s global managing partner for generative AI. “We see how the need to increase employee productivity while simultaneously elevating the customer experience with speed, personalization, and convenience has surged exponentially,” he said in a statement. The start of a partnership of this kind has been in the cards for some time, according to Arun Chandrasekaran, distinguished vice president and analyst at Gartner Research. He said one of the major focuses for IBM’s consulting business of late has been attempting to increase the company’s wallet share with non-IBM products. “To that end, they’ve been increasing the workforce and consulting capabilities with third-party partners,” Chandrasekaran said. Despite IBM’s work with Watson, genAI is an area where the company is lagging behind, forcing it to become more strategic in its moves around the technology, he added. “I think one of the areas where they believe they can add value is to help other vendors deliver AI in a more responsible and a more trustworthy way,” Chandrasekaran said. “What I mean by that is, they’re building tools for everything from model explainability to model monitoring to bias protection and so on and so forth.” The partnership is unlikely to slow either company’s in-house efforts to develop more advanced genAI technologies, however. There’s too much at stake for both Salesforce and IBM for either company to stop doing core work on model development. “I don’t really see this as the kind of partnership where [it’s] ‘You do this, I do this,’” said Chanrdasekaran. “I see this more or less like, ‘Hey, I’m bringing more and more products to customers, and I really want a services partner that could help us implement them very well.” The joint offerings from the partnership are available now. Related content news analysis Apple earnings: About that iPhone 'slump' in China Based on information from Thursday's earnings report, it seems that data pointing to an iPhone slump in China were over-baked. By Jonny Evans May 03, 2024 9 mins iMac iPhone Apple news Microsoft begins to phase out ‘classic’ Teams Microsoft is encouraging Teams customers to move to the new, faster version of the collaboration app; the older version will be switched off next year. By Matthew Finnegan May 03, 2024 3 mins Microsoft Teams Collaboration Software Productivity Software news analysis Apple confirms it will open up the iPad in Europe this fall The latest efforts to comply with Europe’s Digital Markets Act mean developers can offer to side load apps to both iPhones and iPads in the EU. Apple has also taken steps to improve what it offers to smaller and non-commercial developers in the By Jonny Evans May 02, 2024 6 mins iPad Apple Mobile Apps news Udacity offers laid-off US workers free access to its courses for 30 days Sign-ups will be available over the next 30 days By Lucas Mearian May 02, 2024 4 mins Technology Industry IT Jobs IT Skills Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe