Next Stage of Salesforce AWS Partnership: Low-Code Development Tools and Intelligent CRM

Close technical partners over the past five years, Salesforce and Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced tighter product integrations this week.
Developers will be able to integrate AWS capabilities into Salesforce applications with the help of Wednesday’s improvements. Salesforce will also integrate AWS’s artificial intelligence and machine-learning tools into its customer relationship management solutions (CRM). Salesforce announced that the new integrations will “make it easier for customers to use Salesforce and AWS capabilities together, to quickly build and deployment powerful new business apps that accelerate digital transformation,” in the announcement.
The developer-focused improvements have three aspects. The first is that the companies will make it easier to create custom applications using “new low-code, click-to-launch development instruments.” These tools will allow developers to use AWS data, such as Amazon S3 and the Amazon Relational Database Service, to build Salesforce applications.
The second is that Salesforce applications will be able to access real-time AWS data through the developer integration, “allowing customers more easily automate workflows and maintain a single view” of their end customer.
Third, security, access management, and identity management between the platforms will be more unified.
Andy Jassy, newly appointed CEO of AWS, stated that “[D]evelopers can build unified apps much faster and easier than ever before using both AWS or Salesforce.” “With this partnership we are significantly simplifying the lives of developers and empowering them with the ability to create applications wherever they want, globally, at any scale.
The software side of the deal promises “new intelligent apps” from the two companies. AWS’ intelligent voice and video capabilities will be integrated into Salesforce solutions through prebuilt applications and add-ons. According to the announcement, customers can activate virtual contact centers and empower high-velocity teams with AWS AI/ML and Amazon Connect services. These services are preintegrated into [Salesforce] Sales Cloud as well as Service Cloud.
Salesforce users will be able to deliver industry-specific products easier with the integrations. Customers will be able deliver digital experiences and services that are ahead of the industry disruption by leveraging AWS technologies such as Amazon Chime SDK, Amazon Textract (intelligent information extraction from scanned documents), Amazon Comprehend and Amazon Comprehend (natural text processing to uncover information within text) and other directly within Salesforce Industry Clouds.
This week’s announcement builds on the existing relationship between AWS, Salesforce. Salesforce selected AWS in 2016 to be its preferred public-cloud infrastructure provider. Marc Benioff, Salesforce CEO, stated that “With a stronger Salesforce and AWS platform our customers around the globe can create one source of truth across marketing, sales, and commerce and can achieve success from anywhere.”