IBM and Salesforce have formed a global strategic partnership that focuses on connecting the Watson artificial intelligence platform with Salesforce solutions for CRM data.
IBM is also strategically investing in its Global Business Services capabilities for Salesforce with a new practice to help clients rapidly deploy the combined IBM Watson and Salesforce Einstein capabilities.
The partnership will bring new insights from Watson into the Salesforce Intelligent Customer Success Platform, combining customer information from Salesforce Einstein with Watson's structured and unstructured data across sources and industries, including weather, healthcare, financial services and retail.
"Within a few years, every major decision—personal or business—will be made with the help of AI and cognitive technologies," said Ginni Rometty, chairman, president and chief executive officer, IBM. "This year we expect Watson will touch one billion people—through everything from oncology and retail to tax preparation and cars. Now, with today's announcement, the power of Watson will serve the millions of Salesforce and Einstein customers and developers to provide an unprecedented understanding of customers."
Salesforce and IBM will initially deliver IBM Watson and Salesforce Einstein Integration, integrating IBM Watson APIs into Salesforce to help bring predictive insights from unstructured data, inside or outside an enterprise, together with predictive insights from customer data. The Weather Company, an IBM business, will also offer a new Lightning component on the Salesforce AppExchange to provide weather insights that inform customer interactions and business performance. With IBM Application Integration Suite for Salesforce, customers will be able to able to bring together on-premise enterprise and cloud data with specialized integration products for Salesforce, surfacing that data directly within the Salesforce Intelligent Customer Success Platform. In addition, Bluewolf Dedicated Consulting Services and Expertise for Cognitive Solutions is a new practice to help clients deploy the combined IBM Watson and Salesforce Einstein capabilities.
The IBM Watson and Salesforce Einstein integration; the IBM Weather Lightning Component on Salesforce AppExchange; and new industry-focused Solution Accelerators from Bluewolf are expected to be available in the second half of 2017.
The IBM Application Integration Suite for Salesforce is expected to be available by the end of March 2017.
For more information on IBM Watson, go to ibm.com/watson, and for more about Salesforce, go to www.salesforce.com.