Salesforce Joins Race for Artificially Intelligent Business Software

Salesforce.com Inc. CRM 0.61 % said it would embed artificial intelligence technology into its software for salespeople, making it the latest in a gaggle of companies racing to enhance workplace tools with human-like abilities. The company will demonstrate the new software at its annual user conference next month in San Francisco. Called Einstein, the new offering is a set of online AI services designed to automate tasks, predict behavior and spotlight relevant information. Einstein is the latest in a long line of AI products branded with human-sounding names including Alexa from Amazon.com Inc., Cortana from Microsoft Corp. MSFT -0.57 IBM -1.06 % IBM and Microsoft, in particular, have spearheaded a push to offer AI services aimed at corporate users.