Top 10 CRM software

Important news about CRM software

2024. Salesforce unveiled first LLM benchmark for CRM industry



In a universe teeming with software, where Salesforce reigns as the galactic emperor of customer relationship management (CRM), it was only a matter of time before they unveiled the world's very first large language model (LLM) benchmark tailored specifically for CRM systems. Crafted by the deep thinkers over at Salesforce AI Research—who, one assumes, drink far too much coffee—this rather clever framework helps businesses navigate the bewildering zoo of LLMs. By testing their mettle in four crucial arenas—accuracy, cost, speed and that all-important trust and safety—it promises to bring order to the CRM galaxy. With its laser focus on sales and service scenarios like prospecting, nurturing leads and summarizing opportunities and cases, it even comes with a public leaderboard for the CRM pros to choose the finest models, all while Salesforce plots future expansions with shiny new use cases and finely-tuned LLMs.


2024. Salesforce adds more AI to call management



Salesforce, the cosmic-sized software giant specializing in turning customer data into gold (or at least tidy spreadsheets), has once again fiddled with its Sales Cloud and Service Cloud. This time, they’ve stuffed them with more Einstein AI and Data Cloud magic in a quest to make sales calls less of a cosmic black hole for productivity. The new and improved Sales Cloud boasts AI marvels like generative updates for Einstein Conversation Insights, Sales Signals and the shiny Einstein Copilot for Sales Actions. Imagine a futuristic sales companion that helps sellers prepare for customer calls, charmingly summarizes them afterward and even chats back using natural language, as if you’re casually texting a friend about quarter-four targets. Einstein Conversation Insights doesn’t just jot down meeting notes anymore—it grabs them by the collar, extracts every valuable insight and action item and sneakily updates the CRM system so humans don’t have to. Meanwhile, the Sales Signals feature swoops in to scoop up data from across customer meetings, helping companies spot new opportunities like a treasure map revealing the next big sale, all while promising to refine those ever-elusive go-to-market strategies.

2023. Pipedrive unveiled AI-powered sales assistant



It is a truth universally acknowledged—well, at least in the small but frantically busy universe of sales—that Pipedrive, the rather clever and unfathomably user-friendly sales CRM for small businesses, has once again upped its game. Enter the AI-driven Sales Assistant (currently in beta and likely to get even more brilliant). Imagine a digital hitchhiker, but instead of thumbing a ride, it gives sales professionals uncannily accurate insights into which deals might actually close and nudges them toward the next logical step like a very polite but insistent robot. Naturally, companies lucky enough to employ this shiny new tool see their deal closures triple, while everyone else looks on in quiet despair. With AI pulling the strings, Pipedrive helps sales teams prioritize like pros, zero in on the deals that matter and gracefully swerve around those pesky challenges lurking in their pipelines. It's a bit like having Marvin the Paranoid Android in a good mood—only more helpful.


2023. HubSpot unveils strategy to integrate AI across the platform



In a universe where marketing and CRM platforms buzz around like hyperactive bees in a very digital hive, HubSpot has decided to give its AI strategy a significant upgrade, dubbed HubSpot AI, with the kind of fanfare usually reserved for the unveiling of a particularly cunning teapot. While dabbling in AI has been a hobby for HubSpot and many SaaS vendors, the appearance of technologies like ChatGPT (which somehow manages to both fascinate and unnerve) nudged HubSpot into a more ambitious territory, all while keeping some of its earlier AI magic. The CRM database, a veritable treasure trove of company data, is there to help users unravel the many mysteries of customer profiles—from the mundane but essential facts to the subtle art of tracking purchase habits and even grumpy customer service calls. The new AI plan unfurls like a four-dimensional origami: content assistants sprouting up everywhere to help conjure content of all shapes and sizes, AI agents in various stages of their evolutionary lifecycle ready to leap into customer service tasks, and AI Insights whispering sweet predictive nothings about who might be plotting to churn or, even better, about to make a purchase.


2023. Salesforce launches AI Cloud to bring models to the enterprise



Salesforce is introducing a new collection of products with the goal of strengthening its position in the highly competitive field of AI. This suite, known as AI Cloud, consists of tools that are designed to provide AI solutions that are suitable for enterprise use. It represents Salesforce's latest effort to enhance its product lineup with AI capabilities across different disciplines. The launch of AI Cloud builds upon the company's previous generative AI initiative, which was introduced in March, aiming to incorporate generative AI throughout the entire Salesforce platform. AI Cloud serves as a hosting and delivery platform for AI models, specifically those focused on generating text, from a variety of partners such as Amazon Web Services, Anthropic, Cohere and OpenAI. Additionally, Salesforce's own AI research division offers first-party models that power features like code generation and business process automation. Customers also have the option to bring their own custom-trained models to the platform while storing their data on their own infrastructure.


2023. Kustomer, the CRM startup acquired by Meta last year for $1B, spins out



Facebook—now Meta, of course, and still reeling from its own existential crisis on the name front—has officially decided to set Kustomer loose into the universe once more. The social media giant had paid a whopping $1 billion for this CRM startup not too long ago, but in a manner reminiscent of one of Zaphod Beeblebrox’s more impulsive whims, the precise existence of interested buyers for Kustomer remains as ethereal as the last tea spoonful of Vogon poetry appreciation. Still, Meta has cleverly held onto a minority stake, a move that smacks of galactic insurance policies: just in case Kustomer decides to develop something spectacular, Meta can still collaborate, throw in a towel (or two) and continue to service clients picked up during its intergalactic custodianship. With the current mad dash towards generative AI innovations and shiny new digital doodads, both entities have every opportunity to cook up something potentially bewildering yet brilliant across Meta’s many platforms. Just what degree of entanglement their partnership retains is anybody’s guess, though it’s fair to say that Kustomer still dreams of disrupting the CRM cosmos. After all, it set out to revolutionize customer relationship management with an omni-channel approach, given the way modern consumers dart about like pan-galactic gargle blasters, rendering traditional CRMs as effective as a towel at shielding one from a Vogon destructor fleet.


2023. Personal CRM app Clay introduces an AI helper to help you navigate your relationships



In the teeming, often perplexing cosmos of human relationships, Clay, a clever little startup with ambitions the size of a minor planet, has decided that what we all need is a more sophisticated way to recall exactly who that brilliant conversationalist at last year's party was, or perhaps why the person emailing you about "opportunities" vaguely rings a bell. Enter Nexus, Clay's AI navigator, which doesn’t just answer questions like “What’s the meaning of life?” (because let’s be honest, it probably doesn’t know) but instead tackles far more useful queries like, “Who among my contacts has hiked through Patagonia?” or “Which friend knows far too much about quantum physics?” Instead of using AI to trawl through the great digital void of the internet, Nexus takes a more intimate approach, sifting through your own contact universe, making sense of your connections with the sort of privacy that might make a paranoid android feel reassured. So, yes, it’s a touch more practical—and likely more adept at helping you keep up with those all-too-often-neglected bonds with friends, colleagues, and that peculiar cousin who collects typewriters.


2023. Microsoft brings an AI-powered Copilot to Dynamics 365



Microsoft is introducing a new AI tool called Copilot, designed to automate some of the more repetitive sales and customer service tasks. For example, in Dynamics 365 Sales and Viva Sales, Copilot can assist in composing email responses to customers and generating an email summary of a Teams meeting in Outlook. The meeting summary incorporates details from the seller’s CRM, like product and pricing information and combines them with insights from the recorded Teams call. In Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Copilot can draft “contextual answers” to customer inquiries through chat or email and offer an “interactive chat experience” for customer service agents, utilizing knowledge bases and case history. Additionally, conversation boosters enhance a new “GPT” model in Microsoft’s AI Builder tool, which allows organizations to embed text-generation capabilities into their Power Automate and Power Apps solutions.


2023. Attio raises $23.5M to build a next-gen CRM platform



Attio has triumphantly secured $31.2 million in the grand, mysterious, and often absurd cosmos of CRM platforms. This isn't just any CRM, mind you; Attio boasts a data model so dizzyingly performant that it could make a quantum physicist’s brain hurt, combined with the collaborative elegance of no-code software that practically begs you to be productive. The platform manifests a positively riveting database of contacts and companies your business has been hobnobbing with, offering you the thrilling opportunity to dissect and manage customer records, jot down vitally important notes, and set up self-updating workflows that feel as close to magic as technology gets. It’s priced at a cool $119 per user per month for those who like to live on the cutting edge. While legacy CRMs dawdle about with labyrinthine data models that are as slow to deploy as a Vogon poetry recital and about as overpriced, CRM startups and in-house CRMs offer a steadier, yet laughably inflexible experience. In other words, if you've ever wished for a CRM platform that feels like a genuine improvement, Attio may just be the improbable solution to your highly improbable problem.


2023. Gameball raises $3.5M to scale its CRM platform for consumer brands



In a universe not entirely unlike this one, and on a planet that’s rather fond of using phrases like “data leverage” and “customer intelligence,” there exists a clever CRM platform called Gameball. Having recently materialized a shiny $3.5M from the vast and complex interstellar economy of venture capital, Gameball is in the business of helping consumer brands grow by doing that terribly clever thing of knowing things about their customers. These brands use Gameball’s tools to forge long-lasting, mildly affectionate (and most importantly, profitable) relationships with their customers, guided by loyalty programs that are, naturally, as personalized as the algorithms can manage. By analyzing the data from existing customers—those often-overlooked gems capable of producing far more business value than the flash-in-the-pan thrill of new ones—Gameball helps brands avoid the wasteful, panic-driven abyss of paid advertising. Instead, it offers a universe of well-aimed campaigns and reward systems, where monetization and strategic upselling unfold smoothly, like a towel rolling out on a sunny, data-rich beach.