Salesforce will expand one of Tableau’s key AI features to its core customer relationship management platform, in one of its most notable integrations since acquiring the data visualization company five years ago.
The San Francisco-based company said Friday that it’s launching “Pulse for Salesforce,” an adaptation of Tableau Pulse that will provide AI-powered charts and key takeaways for Salesforce CRM users. It’s starting with Sales Cloud, with plans to expand Pulse to additional Salesforce products and platforms in the future.
Tableau Pulse, which officially launched in February, uses natural language and generative AI to visualize and interpret data. The idea is to give business users insights in the flow of work, allowing them to quickly take action.
Whereas the traditional Tableau interface requires a learning curve for data visualization novices, Tableau Pulse is more approachable and automated. The larger idea is to expand Tableau’s footprint beyond its core base of data analysts and data professionals, Tableau CEO Ryan Aytay said in an interview.
“We love those folks, and we’ll continue to serve them,” Aytay said. “But why wouldn’t we open it up to more Salesforce customers, as well? So that’s really what it is — we’re becoming more relevant to a larger audience.”
To start, there will be nine pre-built Tableau Pulse metrics offered as part of the Sales Cloud integration, including win rate, average days to close, total sales pipeline, conversion rate, and others. Sales reps and managers can also ask questions in natural language to dig into the underlying trends and takeaways.
The company says existing Tableau Pulse customers can connect Pulse to Salesforce at no additional cost, while new Salesforce customers can purchase Pulse for $50 per user per month for a viewer account.
Salesforce says Pulse uses its Einstein Trust Layer secure AI architecture for security, data, and privacy controls.
Tableau’s competitors include products from tech giants such as Microsoft, Amazon, and Google, in addition to a variety of data visualization tools and technologies from smaller companies and tech startups.
Tableau grew its annual revenue by 16% in Salesforce’s 2024 fiscal year, which ended Feb. 28, according to the company’s financial results. Tableau revenue was up 21% in the first quarter of the 2025 fiscal year.
The company no longer reports actual revenue figures for Tableau and other acquired companies.
Salesforce acquired Seattle-based Tableau Salesforce for $15.7 billion in 2019. It has significantly reduced Tableau’s footprint in Seattle in recent years, exiting office space in the Fremont neighborhood amid past layoffs.
However, the company said this week that it remains committed to the Seattle region, including the “Data1” building in Fremont that serves as a key hub for Tableau and Salesforce employees in the region.
“Tableau is a critical and thriving part of our business and we remain fully committed to our Seattle-based home and employees. Employees have access to a vibrant office environment at our Data1, Plaza and Bellevue offices where they can connect with colleagues and customers in the area,” a Salesforce spokesperson said.
Research firm Gartner continued to rank Tableau as a leader in its June 2024 Magic Quadrant report, and Gartner no longer expressed concerns about subpar customer support as it did in the past. Aytay said last year that this was an issue Tableau was addressing as part of its reformulated executive team at the time.
Tableau is led by its own team of c-level executives inside Salesforce. Aytay has cited this approach as a major point of differentiation between Tableau and other big players in the market — most notably Microsoft, which is bringing its Copilot AI technology to its competing Power BI data visualization platform.
The latest Gartner report credited Tableau for “improving both its technology and commercial flexibility.”
The report also noted that Tableau is facing growing competition from major cloud and business application vendors that are repackaging their products to make their own headway in data and analytics.
“In order to effectively compete in the areas of large-scale enterprise reporting and advanced analytics use cases, Tableau needs to strategically refine its market position within Salesforce Data Cloud,” the Gartner report said.
https://ift.tt/tJVW8GE August 16, 2024 at 01:00PM GeekWire
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