For the past year, weekly senior staff meetings at global firm Salesforce have been attended by an artificial intelligence (AI) machine known as “Einstein.”
Marc Benioff, the cloud-based software company’s CEO, revealed Thursday that he relied on the software every Monday morning.
Speaking on a panel at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, Benioff was asked to cite an example of how AI could help the world crunch big data.
“I have my top 30 or 40 executives around my table,” he said. “And we figure out how we are doing as we look at all of this analysis.
“But now I have a new person with me and it’s kind of an empty chair. We have a technology called Einstein.”
Benioff said that after he has worked around his room of executives he then quizzes his AI assistant. “I ask Einstein, ‘I heard what everybody said but what do you actually think?'”
The Salesforce boss said he has been using the technology for a year now, and recently Einstein questioned the reports of one European employee.
“And Einstein said, ‘Well, I don’t think this executive is going to make their number, I’m so sorry.'”
Benioff said the executive was visibly upset by the claim but after Einstein had processed all the data, the AI machine was able to identify the problems in real time.
“And I could say, ‘Well, you’ve got this problem, and this person hasn’t got that in place, and you didn’t do this over here.'”
