Microsoft Will Use OpenAI Tech to Write Emails for Busy Salespeople

A customer-management app is the latest Microsoft product to get tools from the ChatGPT maker

Viva Sales, a customer-relationship app, will get OpenAI's GPT tech to to help customers automate email replies. (REUTERS)

Microsoft Corp. is adding artificial intelligence capabilities from ChatGPT maker OpenAI to another of its products — this time a customer-relationship app that's meant to help win revenue from Salesforce Inc.

Viva Sales, which connects Microsoft's Office and video conferencing programs with customer relations management software, will be able to generate email replies to clients using OpenAI's product for creating text. The AI tools, which include OpenAI's GPT 3.5 — the system that is the basis for the ChatGPT chatbot— will cull data from customer records and Office email software. That information will then be used to generate emails containing personalized text, pricing details and promotions.

The Viva Sales app was initially released in October and works with Microsoft's Dynamics customer management program and that of rival Salesforce. It's free for users who sign up for the premium versions of Dynamics and $40 per user per month for Salesforce customers.

Microsoft, which last month struck an investment deal with OpenAI that's said to be worth $10 billion, has been adding the AI research shop's products and systems into software for computer programmers and the cloud. Microsoft is planning to use ChatGPT to enhance its Bing search engine, a person familiar with the matter said last month, and Microsoft executives have talked about a wide variety of consumer and commercial uses for OpenAI's work. ChatGPT has captured the attention of the internet since launching at the end of November. Its imitation of human conversation sparked speculation about its potential to supplant professional writers and even threaten the core search business at Alphabet Inc.'s Google. OpenAI, the organization behind it, makes money by charging developers to license its technology.