Salesforce backs generative AI with $369 million investment fund and a ChatGPT app for Slack

Salesforce is launching a $369 million investment fund specifically targeted at responsible generative AI. If it wasn’t already clear that AI is the Web3 of business focus in 2023, it certainly is now.

The cloud software company made the announcement at its TrailblazerDX developer conference in San Francisco on Wednesday. The fund is being run by its VC arm, Salesforce Ventures. And it’s kicking things off by investing in four startups in the AI space: Cohere, Hearth.AI, You.com and Anthropic.

The latter startup is particularly interesting. It has a focus on AI security and research and was founded in 2021 by former employees of OpenAI — the company behind ChatGPT.

It quite quickly raised $180 million and within a year raised another whopping $880 million.

Cohere also entered into a multi-year partnership with Google Cloud in November 2021. The startup operates a language processing platform to help developers build these models into their apps.

“Salesforce Ventures has been investing in high-potential enterprise technology businesses for more than a decade, and these initial investments from the fund in generative AI companies fit squarely into that strategy,” John Somorjai, EVP of Corporate Development at Salesforce Ventures, said in a statement.

“This fund will accelerate our commitment to fostering the next generation of innovation and we’re excited to see how these companies reinvent how the world works.”

Salesforce also announces a partnership with OpenAI to bring ChatGPT to Slack

Investment wasn’t the only AI focus during TrailblazerDX this week. Salesforce also announced its on generative AI pilot called Einstein GPT.

It’s called the the world’s first AI CRM technology that delivers AI content across a number of arms of the Salesforce platform, including sales, marketing and IT.

Salesforce and OpenAI also joined forces to introduce a ChatGPT app for Slack. It’s currently in beta, but it will allow features such as conversation summaries, research tools and writing assistance directly within Slack.

“The ChatGPT app for Slack deeply integrates the power of OpenAI’s cutting edge large language models into Slack’s conversational interface. There couldn’t be a more natural fit,” Noah Desai Weiss, Chief Product Officer at Slack, said in a statement.

“This will give customers new superpowers by helping them tap the collective knowledge of their organisation’s channel archives. We’re excited to partner with OpenAI to bring more generative AI powers directly into Slack to deliver productivity efficiencies for everyone.”