Insight Track: Atrium's Interview Series

Einstein GPT, Tableau GPT, ChatGPT... Generative AI has emerged in the market with incredible buzz. But what are the real use cases and tactical approaches companies can take advantage of and employ right now? How can they plan for an increasingly AI-supercharged future? Latané Conant, Chief Market Officer at 6sense, discusses the real-world power of generative AI that sales and marketing can leverage to improve productivity, boost personalization, see measurable wins, and keep ahead of the competition.

Is CDP the new CRM? Christopher Dean, a CMT leader at Salesforce, discusses the evolution of data unification, including CRM as the canonical record of data and CDP as the action engine on top of it. In conversation, he details combining core Salesforce capabilities with communications and media industry-specific capabilities, a powerful focus on monetization for subscriber and ad sales customers, and doing more to deliver on the promise of Customer 360.

With more and more companies making the transition to the data economy, themes of quality, governance, and technological ROI take center stage. Mark Fleming, a sales leader at Snowflake, discusses the nirvana achievement of centralized data to create meaningful outcomes, the power of communication and storytelling across internal teams to bolster collaboration and buy-in, and trends around further simplification of data sharing for long-term adaptability and success.

With an adaptive mindset and diverse stakeholders around the same table, a future wherein salespeople grow alongside technology (rather than technology outpacing them) is possible. Moreover, it’s necessary. As a leader of strategic initiatives at Worldpay, Brenna Reimink discusses the importance of automation, societal changes, and combining big-picture goals and everyday realities to focus on the end user and enable shared ownership across different teams.

As the CTO of Robert Half, with more than 20 years at the company, James Johnson has overseen and championed numerous data science and AI projects at tremendous scale. With insight into what it takes to make a global deployment successful — and the competing priorities when it comes to localization and standardization — James spoke about the evolution to go faster with technology projects today, how to get products into users’ hands and not just strategize about it, and the future of effective leadership.

Salesforce analytics leader Jason Little has been in the data space throughout his entire career. Formerly at companies like Oracle and MongoDB, he’s seen firsthand the industry’s attempts at centralizing massive amounts of data. He discussed the necessary shift in focus toward the end user experience rather than on technical problems, his predictions for the future of customer communications, and what the combined capabilities of Slack and Tableau mean for us all.

As a digital transformation leader at the intersection of technology and higher education, Karthik Venkatesh knows how to navigate investments in CRM, analytics, and AI with a focus on the user. For institutions and students alike, data is only as good as its applicability — and that begins with a data strategy that drives alignment and enables intuitive, meaningful capabilities. He spoke with Chris about the future of 24/7 support, business value as starting point, and personalizing and contextualizing digital experiences for everyone.

A technology pioneer with experience serving in the Navy and paving the way for evolution in the Salesforce ecosystem, Glenn Weinstein knows how to create compelling experiences from basic building blocks. He discussed his current experience with contact center evolution to the cloud at Twilio, advice on thinking of first-party data interactions as common courtesy exchanges, and how he came to test out probability theory in Vegas (of all places).

You don’t know what you don’t know… but your data does. Uncovering unexpected data insights is a superpower, but only for those who know how to leverage the systems of engagement at hand.

Andy Badstubner, a leader in the mortgage industry, discussed changes in the data innovation space with our CEO Chris Heineken and the ways companies are using (or not using!) data to predict and prioritize their target market, go after new markets, or create something game-changing for customers.

The ability to adapt to new technologies and processes, let alone implement them, can prove challenging for most organizations. Appian's Mariano Salatino spoke to Chris about the dangers of rushing to deploy without realigning processes, data, governance, or even knowing what success looks like, as well as the move from reporting and analytics to more predictive modeling and coaching, the realities of revops, and the do's and don'ts of particular platform investments.

What does it take to be successful with change management, adoption, and engagement in today's technologies for those in sales and revops? Chris speaks with CooperVision's Claire Bolton about prioritizing transparency, communication, and self-service when it comes to empowering sales teams.

The mindset around analytics transformation has evolved over the last few years, with businesses of every size and shape grappling with whether to move from legacy investments to a modern data architecture — along with the benefits and how best to do it. Chris speaks with Snowflake's Peter MacDonald about the importance of predictive capabilities, industries that would most benefit from analytics and machine learning right now, Snowflake’s partnerships with companies such as Salesforce and AWS, and next steps for companies wanting to become more data-driven.

So many AI projects fail… but why? Adoption and ROI can be complicated for those just starting out with AI. Chris speaks with the Founder and CEO of Aible, Arijit Sengupta, about his years of experience in machine learning, his book "AI is a Waste of Money: Why Most AI Projects Fail and the Secrets of Succeeding with AI," and the importance of adaptability as we look toward the future of AI investments.

Patterns around analytics and AI are changing—and Tableau CRM is at the forefront of many of them. Chris speaks with Salesforce's Steve Brown about his journey at Salesforce, unpacking the differences between Tableau and Tableau CRM for newcomers to analytics, and detailing how businesses can prioritize and plan for success with predictive analytics.

The expectations we have for customer success in financial services are changing. To explore the market and talk about major emerging themes, Chris speaks with Salesforce's Anthony Rizzo. They discuss the top success patterns that separate average Salesforce outcomes from the top 1%, the evolution of the success program at Salesforce, and how financial institutions should be measuring success today and for the future.

Those in the Salesforce ecosystem have seen the incredible progression of Salesforce analytics and AI solutions over the years. But former Salesforce industry expert David Gibbons has lived it—having experienced major transitions and growth in the form of Wave, Einstein, and Tableau. Chris speaks with David about his history at Salesforce and the inside evolution of product marketing, intelligent systems adoption and investment in an unprecedented time, and the market’s direction as look toward the future.

There has been a great deal of investment from technology platforms and purpose-built AI companies around embedded predictive analytics. How did we get here and where are we headed next? Phil Cooper speaks with Chris about his own evolution with Salesforce analytics, common success factors with analytics for Salesforce’s customer base, long-term expectations in the predictions space, and more.

Salesforce industry expert Geoff Green has seen the challenges and changes across the mortgage industry through COVID-19 firsthand. He speaks with Chris about his path to mortgage and lending at Salesforce, the evolution of analytics and machine learning in the industry, Financial Services Cloud for mortgage, and ensuring a seamless borrower experience now and in the future.

Businesses have a lot to consider when it comes to spending on sales productivity—particularly those that have invested in legacy IT. Nutanix's Dana Clark speaks with Chris about business transformation in light of a pandemic, putting analytics and AI at the forefront of future sales productivity investments, and how businesses can get started with intelligent solutions.

What can we expect from the future of analytics on the Salesforce platform? What are the biggest roadblocks to getting started—and how can businesses overcome them and see results? Salesforce's Susan Emerson speaks with Chris about trends in the market, common use cases centered on predictions, and what’s next for Salesforce analytics.

How can universities identify at-risk students and engage them sooner? Where is the breakdown between acceptance and enrollment? What common process areas are most ripe for transformation? Chris speaks with industry expert Daniel Goldsmith (Ormond and Julius Education) about the role of analytics and machine learning in higher education today, as well as barriers to success and the potential long-term results of current changes in the industry for students and institutions alike.