Ep 29: Salesforce AI CEO Clara Shih on Future of Slack, How Gucci Uses AI and Working with Marc Benioff

There’s an ongoing debate about where the most value will accrue in AI between incumbents and startups. Of the incumbents, few have shipped product faster than SalesforceAI. Today on Unsupervised Learning we had on Clara Shih, CEO of SalesforceAI and one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in AI. 

 

(0:00) intro

(0:50) work practices that will become irrelevant

(1:37) revolutionizing reply recommendations and case summaries

(4:57) newest Salesforce products

(5:53) structuring teams

(7:22) engineering trust into AI products

(11:58) combining in-house models with ChatGBT

(13:33) Gucci’s AI adoption

(16:01) how does Salesforce choose who to share their data with?

(20:29) AI costs

(26:29 creating unique voices for brands

(27:45) AI incumbents vs. startups

(29:54) what Clara would build if she had the time

(32:28) the future of Slack

(35:55) what percent of customer support questions can be answered by AI?

(38:37) over-hyped/under-hyped

(39:32) working with Mark Benioff

(40:46) Jacob and Pat debrief

(44:42) Slack is the perfect interface for generative AI

(46:10) Abridge investment

(48:15) Ideogram investment

 

With your co-hosts:  

@jacobeffron  

- Partner at Redpoint, Former PM Flatiron Health  

@patrickachase  

- Partner at Redpoint, Former ML Engineer LinkedIn  

@ericabrescia  

- Former COO Github, Founder Bitnami (acq’d by VMWare)  

@jordan_segall  

- Partner at Redpoint

Jacob is an AI investor at Redpoint Ventures. He's led Redpoint's investments in companies like Abridge, Physical Intelligence & Legora. Follow Jacob on Twitter (@jacobeffron).

On Unsupervised Learning we probe the sharpest minds in AI in search for the truth about what's real today, what will be real in the future and what it all means for businesses and the world. If you're a builder, researcher or investor navigating the AI world, this podcast will help you deconstruct and understand the most important breakthroughs and see a clearer picture of reality. Subscribe to this show to stay up to date on our latest episodes.