Enterprise

Salesforce’s Kathy Baxter is coming to TC Sessions: SaaS to talk AI

Comment

As the use of AI has grown and developed over the last several years, companies like Salesforce have tried to tap into it to improve their software and help customers operate faster and more efficiently. Kathy Baxter, principal architect for the ethical AI practice at Salesforce, will be joining us at TechCrunch Sessions: SaaS on October 27th to talk about the impact of AI on SaaS.

Baxter, who has more than 20 years of experience as a software architect, joined Salesforce in 2017 after more than a decade at Google in a similar role. We’re going to tap into her expertise on a panel discussing AI’s growing role in software.

Salesforce was one of the earlier SaaS adherents to AI, announcing its artificial intelligence tooling, which the company dubbed Einstein, in 2016. While the positioning makes it sound like a product, it’s actually much more than a single entity. It’s a platform component, which the various pieces of the Salesforce platform can tap into to take advantage of various types of AI to help improve the user experience.

That could involve feeding information to customer service reps on Service Cloud to make the call move along more efficiently, helping salespeople find the customers most likely to close a deal soon in the Sales Cloud or helping marketing understand the optimal time to send an email in the Marketing Cloud.

Salesforce Einstein delivers artificial intelligence across the Salesforce platform

The company began building out its AI tooling early on with the help of 175 data scientists and has been expanding on that initial idea since. Other companies, both startups and established companies like SAP, Oracle and Microsoft, have continued to build AI into their platforms as Salesforce has. Today, many SaaS companies have some underlying AI built into their service.

Baxter will join us to discuss the role of AI in software today and how that helps improve the operations of the service itself, and what the implications are of using AI in your software service as it becomes a mainstream part of the SaaS development process.

In addition to our discussion with Baxter, the conference will also include Databricks’ Ali Ghodsi, UiPath’s Daniel Dines and Puppet’s Abby Kearns, as well as investors Casey Aylward and Sarah Guo, among others. We hope you’ll join us. It’s going to be a stimulating day.

Buy your pass now to save up to $100, and use CrunchMatch to make expanding your empire quick, easy and efficient. We can’t wait to see you in October!

Is your company interested in sponsoring or exhibiting at TC Sessions: SaaS 2021? Contact our sponsorship sales team by filling out this form.

More TechCrunch

Snowflake is the latest company in a string of high-profile security incidents and sizable data breaches caused by the lack of MFA.

Hundreds of Snowflake customer passwords found online are linked to info-stealing malware

The buy will benefit ChromeOS, Google’s lightweight Linux-based operating system, by giving ChromeOS users greater access to Windows apps “without the hassle of complex installations or updates.”

Google acquires Cameyo to bring Windows apps to ChromeOS

Mistral is no doubt looking to grow revenue as it faces considerable — and growing — competition in the generative AI space.

Mistral launches new services and SDK to let customers fine-tune its models

The warning for the Ai Pin was issued “out of an abundance of caution,” according to Humane.

Humane urges customers to stop using charging case, citing battery fire concerns

The keynote will be focused on Apple’s software offerings and the developers that power them, including the latest versions of iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, visionOS and watchOS.

Watch Apple kick off WWDC 2024 right here

As WWDC 2024 nears, all sorts of rumors and leaks have emerged about what iOS 18 and its AI-powered apps and features have in store.

What to expect from Apple’s AI-powered iOS 18 at WWDC 2024

Welcome to Elon Musk’s X. The social network formerly known as Twitter where the rules are made up and the check marks don’t matter. Or do they? The Tesla and…

Elon Musk’s X: A complete timeline of what Twitter has become

TechCrunch has kept readers informed regarding Fearless Fund’s courtroom battle to provide business grants to Black women. Today, we are happy to announce that Fearless Fund CEO and co-founder Arian…

Fearless Fund’s Arian Simone coming to Disrupt 2024

Bridgy Fed is one of the efforts aimed at connecting the fediverse with the web, Bluesky and, perhaps later, other networks like Nostr.

Bluesky and Mastodon users can now talk to each other with Bridgy Fed

Zoox, Amazon’s self-driving unit, is bringing its autonomous vehicles to more cities.  The self-driving technology company announced Wednesday plans to begin testing in Austin and Miami this summer. The two…

Zoox to test self-driving cars in Austin and Miami 

Called Stable Audio Open, the generative model takes a text description and outputs a recording up to 47 seconds in length.

Stability AI releases a sound generator

It’s not just instant-delivery startups that are struggling. Oda, the Norway-based online supermarket delivery startup, has confirmed layoffs of 150 jobs as it drastically scales back its expansion ambitions to…

SoftBank-backed grocery startup Oda lays off 150, resets focus on Norway and Sweden

Newsletter platform Substack is introducing the ability for writers to send videos to their subscribers via Chat, its private community feature, the company announced on Wednesday. The rollout of video…

Substack brings video to its Chat feature

Hiya, folks, and welcome to TechCrunch’s inaugural AI newsletter. It’s truly a thrill to type those words — this one’s been long in the making, and we’re excited to finally…

This Week in AI: Ex-OpenAI staff call for safety and transparency

Ms. Rachel isn’t a household name, but if you spend a lot of time with toddlers, she might as well be a rockstar. She’s like Steve from Blues Clues for…

Cameo fumbles on Ms. Rachel fundraiser as fans receive credits instead of videos  

Cartwheel helps animators go from zero to basic movement, so creating a scene or character with elementary motions like taking a step, swatting a fly or sitting down is easier.

Cartwheel generates 3D animations from scratch to power up creators

The new tool, which is set to arrive in Wix’s app builder tool this week, guides users through a chatbot-like interface to understand the goals, intent and aesthetic of their…

Wix’s new tool taps AI to generate smartphone apps

ClickUp Knowledge Management combines a new wiki-like editor and with a new AI system that can also bring in data from Google Drive, Dropbox, Confluence, Figma and other sources.

ClickUp wants to take on Notion and Confluence with its new AI-based Knowledge Base

New York City, home to over 60,000 gig delivery workers, has been cracking down on cheap, uncertified e-bikes that have resulted in battery fires across the city.  Some e-bike providers…

Whizz wants to own the delivery e-bike subscription space, starting with NYC

This is the last major step before Starliner can be certified as an operational crew system, and the first Starliner mission is expected to launch in 2025. 

Boeing’s Starliner astronaut capsule is en route to the ISS 

TechCrunch Disrupt 2024 in San Francisco is the must-attend event for startup founders aiming to make their mark in the tech world. This year, founders have three exciting ways to…

Three ways founders can shine at TechCrunch Disrupt 2024

Google’s newest startup program, announced on Wednesday, aims to bring AI technology to the public sector. The newly launched “Google for Startups AI Academy: American Infrastructure” will offer participants hands-on…

Google’s new startup program focuses on bringing AI to public infrastructure

eBay’s newest AI feature allows sellers to replace image backgrounds with AI-generated backdrops. The tool is now available for iOS users in the U.S., U.K., and Germany. It’ll gradually roll…

eBay debuts AI-powered background tool to enhance product images

If you’re anything like me, you’ve tried every to-do list app and productivity system, only to find yourself giving up sooner rather than later because managing your productivity system becomes…

Hoop uses AI to automatically manage your to-do list

Asana is using its work graph to train LLMs with the goal of creating AI assistants that work alongside human employees in company workflows.

Asana introduces ‘AI teammates’ designed to work alongside human employees

Taloflow, an early stage startup changing the way companies evaluate and select software, has raised $1.3M in a seed round.

Taloflow puts AI to work on software vendor selection to reduce costs and save time

The startup is hoping its durable filters can make metals refining and battery recycling more efficient, too.

SiTration uses silicon wafers to reclaim critical minerals from mining waste

Spun out of Bosch, Dive wants to change how manufacturers use computer simulations by both using modern mathematical approaches and cloud computing.

Dive goes cloud-native for its computational fluid dynamics simulation service

The tension between incumbents and fintechs has existed for decades. But every once in a while, the two groups decide to put their competition aside and work together. In an…

When foes become friends: Capital One partners with fintech giants Stripe, Adyen to prevent fraud

After growing 500% year-over-year in the past year, Understory is now launching a product focused on the renewable energy sector.

Insurance provider Understory gets into renewable energy following $15M Series A