Salesforce aims to combine Einstein, Quip, IoT into 'one platform' approach

Salesforce.com's annual Dreamforce expo kicks off this week, bringing with it a bevy of product announcements and updates across the CRM giant's portfolio. This year, the Dreamforce centerpiece is Einstein, an artificial intelligence platform that Salesforce has been hyping up for weeks. Salesforce says Einstein "will act as everyone's very own data scientist" by infusing AI throughout the entire Salesforce Platform. In other words, it's pitched as a way to ease the data scientist talent shortage in business and provide enterprises with tools that are otherwise difficult to develop. In a sales context, Einstein can predict customer behaviors, recommend steps to close a deal and automate certain tasks.