Former Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor has unveiled his latest venture, Sierra, a conversational AI company that seeks to transform customer service and enterprise workflows. Taylor, who left Salesforce in November 2022, has teamed up with former Google employee Clay Bavor to launch this ambitious new project.
Key Takeaway
Bret Taylor’s new company, Sierra, is set to revolutionize customer service and enterprise workflows with its advanced conversational AI capabilities, aiming to address challenges such as hallucinations and seamlessly connect to enterprise systems.
Revolutionizing Customer Service with Sierra
At its core, Sierra is a customer service bot, but the company claims that it goes beyond the traditional role of answering questions. According to Sierra, its agents are capable of taking actions within enterprise systems, such as upgrading a subscription in a customer database or managing the complexities of a furniture delivery in an order management system. The company asserts that its agents can reason, problem solve, and make decisions, setting it apart from conventional customer service bots.
Addressing Challenges in Conversational AI
Having extensive experience working with large enterprise customers at Salesforce, Taylor is well aware of the challenges associated with conversational AI, including issues like hallucinations, where language models provide inaccurate or fabricated responses. Sierra claims to have solutions for these challenges, aiming to ensure the accuracy and reliability of its AI agents, particularly for large companies where brand reputation is at stake.
Connecting to Enterprise Systems
Sierra’s ambitious goals also include seamlessly connecting to other enterprise systems to perform tasks on behalf of customers without human intervention. While these claims are bold, they pose significant challenges that the company will need to overcome to deliver on its promises.
