9 Ways an AI Assistant Can Help Out at Work

Do more in less time with custom copilot actions that apply AI across your business.

Using an AI assistant is becoming the norm, especially for companies looking to stay ahead in fast-paced environments where efficiency can make or break lucrative deals. But what many leaders don’t realize is that AI copilots - think chatbots that are powered by generative AI - can take specific actions that are tailored to their business. Whether that means summarizing online information in real time, automatically updating customer relationship management (CRM) records, or using historical data to resolve customer service cases faster, custom copilot actions can help change the way you work.

At Salesforce brainstormed an assortment of use cases where custom actions within Salesforce product, Einstein Copilot, can automate tedious but necessary tasks. We hope these examples show how taking advantage of a generative AI conversational assistant can help you work in a whole new way across your business.

1. Use a text-to-speech copilot action to personalize sales connections

As a salesperson, it can be time consuming to leave voicemail messages for each of your prospects and customers, let alone record voice memos for them, but those are important ways to make personal connections. Since Einstein Copilot has comprehensive knowledge of your customer relationships, you can create a custom copilot action to save time: Generate a script for a phone message that uses natural language pauses and key personal details, and turn that script into a shareable audio clip in your voice, then find the right opportunity to leave your message for the right customer. This all happens in a fraction of the time it would take you to do so, which means you can focus on building your relationships further.

2. Batch similar customer service cases to speed up resolution

A quick way to resolve customer service issues is to replicate your successful past responses. However, service agents often struggle to find similar cases and retrieve the appropriate information from their IT system (or CRM) in time. With custom copilot actions, you can use the Data Cloud vector database to quickly index all your cases. Then, use a tailor-made prompt template (powered by Prompt Builder) to find semantically similar cases and steps for resolution. Customer service agents can use these steps in real time to resolve the case on the spot, resulting in happy customers.

3. Resolve the leading issue for telecom service calls

Sudden increases in telecom bills are a leading cause of flooded service call centers. The number one question in telecom service calls is: Why did my bill increase? With an Einstein Copilot custom action, you can give customer service agents a detailed analysis of exactly when a customer’s bill changed. The tool can also create a script to explain the changes to customers. This helps promote transparency, accuracy, resolution, and trust when rate spikes cause an onslaught of calls.

4. Combine custom copilot actions to create and update CRM records in no time

What if you could tell your AI assistant about your morning meetings, and have it automatically update and create records in your CRM? Sounds like an account executive’s dream come true. With a custom action, you can easily turn a dictated meeting wrap-up into multiple new and updated CRM records. These notes can then be accessed and searched conversationally, so a seller can say, for instance, “Hey, Einstein, what are the next steps that were discussed on recent meetings notes from this account?” and get a response telling them what to focus on and what to do next.

5. Summarize breaking news about customers in real time

It’s necessary to stay up to date on your clients and accounts, and with a custom copilot action that’s connected to a newsfeed site, you can do so efficiently. Your AI assistant can fetch the latest articles and breaking headlines from news sources and blogs across the web for a customer, and create bullet-point updates. This means you’re not only aware of what’s happening in their world, but it also offers new ways for you to champion them.

6. Search and summarize YouTube and website content

Similar to summarizing breaking news, you can search and summarize YouTube and websites with custom copilot actions. While Einstein Copilot can’t browse websites and YouTube videos out of the box just yet, you can build a custom copilot action to retrieve transcripts from YouTube or websites, and summarize them for a quick read of important information you can have at the ready.

7. Revolutionize sales enablement with AI-powered precision

Qualifying leads, preparing for sales meetings, and keeping messaging consistent and personalized is a lot to juggle. With a custom copilot action, you can generate product recommendations that your top sellers would be proud of. The action generates an opportunity’s selling points to a targeted customer so you can succinctly articulate your sales strategy to your team. It also uncovers the customer’s needs and positions you to sell the product tactically with the right value proposition. In other words: It explains why certain products are recommended to certain types of customers and accounts in a way that helps you sell with laser-sharp accuracy.

8. Suggest where to focus your attention

It’s easy to get overwhelmed by a long to-do list and not know where to start. That’s where a custom copilot action can automate a task that helps you prioritize your time and pinpoint which opportunities have the biggest impact. This custom action analyzes all the data in your CRM and recommends what you should focus on so you can spend your valuable time in a way that maximizes your impact. Think about it this way: Going after your most important deal today will pay off right away and will likely have positive long-term gains on your wellbeing and your business.

9. Interact with your whole IT landscape conversationally

When your data is trapped, siloed, or scattered across many systems, how do you integrate it so it can be used across various teams within your company, including nontechnical teams? Say, when a seller needs to generate a purchase order after a successful meeting, but it’s in a legacy, third-party system that only the finance team can easily access. Now, you can turn these integrations into a custom copilot action that tells Einstein Copilot what to do. For example, a seller could say, “Hey, Einstein, please create a PO for ‘this customer’ for ‘this amount of items’ and can you add an x% discount if they purchase before ‘this end-quote-date.’?”” So, what would typically take a lot of time and effort and require unnecessary back and forth between teams can now be delivered across your company and executed instantly.

There’s so much potential with custom copilot actions

From automating routine tasks to providing deep insights, the potential applications of custom copilot actions are vast and varied. As Salesforce continues to explore and develop these capabilities, the future of work looks promisingly smart and efficient.

Learning more about Salesforce Generative AI in action? Contact our team of experts by clicking here.