So, you’ve heard all the buzz about Salesforce Einstein and its promise to bring generative AI right into your CRM. The idea is fantastic: helping your teams sell faster, handle customer problems more efficiently, and create smarter marketing campaigns. But if you’re expecting to just flip a single switch and watch the magic happen, you might want to pause for a second.
Getting Einstein up and running is more of a process than a single action. It involves checking a few boxes, turning on the main AI engine, and then carefully setting up the specific features your teams will actually use.
This guide will walk you through exactly how to enable Einstein AI in Salesforce. We’ll cover the essential setup to get the platform humming and then talk about what comes next, so you can start using AI to make a real difference in your day-to-day work.
What you’ll need before you start
Before you roll up your sleeves and dive into the setup menus, let’s run through a quick checklist. Getting these things in order first will save you a lot of headaches down the road. Here’s what you need to have in place to successfully enable Einstein AI in Salesforce:
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You’re on the right Salesforce plan: Einstein’s generative AI features are only available on the Enterprise, Performance, and Unlimited editions of Salesforce. Not sure which one you have? You can easily check by going to Setup > Company Information.
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You have an Einstein add-on license: You’ll need a specific add-on license, like Einstein for Sales, Einstein for Service, or the Einstein 1 Service bundle. If this sounds unfamiliar, the best thing to do is have a quick chat with your Salesforce account executive.
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You’ve got admin permissions: To make these changes, you’ll need to be a System Administrator in your Salesforce organization. This gives you the keys to the kingdom (or at least the setup menus).
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Data Cloud is up and running: Many of Einstein’s core functions, especially the all-important Einstein Trust Layer, depend on Data Cloud. This one is non-negotiable.
How to enable Einstein AI in Salesforce in 4 steps
Once you’ve confirmed that all the prerequisites are met, you’re ready to get started. The process breaks down into four main stages: making sure Data Cloud is active, turning on the master AI switch, setting up your security settings with the Trust Layer, and finally, enabling the specific AI tools for your users.
1. Verify Data Cloud is active
Think of Data Cloud as the foundation that much of Einstein is built on. It’s especially critical for the Trust Layer, which is what keeps your data safe when the AI is doing its thing. So, before anything else, you need to confirm that Data Cloud is provisioned and ready to go.
To check, head over to Data Cloud Setup from the main Setup menu. If you see the Data Cloud homepage, you’re all set. If it’s not there, try a quick page refresh or log out and back in. If it’s still missing, you’ll need to contact your Salesforce account executive to get it turned on for your organization. Salesforce’s own guides make it clear this step is a must for features like the Trust Layer.
2. Turn on the main toggle
Alright, with Data Cloud sorted, it’s time for the big moment: flipping the main switch for Einstein. This single toggle makes all the different Einstein features available to be configured across your Salesforce environment.
Here’s how to find it:
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From Setup, type "Einstein Setup" into the Quick Find box.
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Click on Einstein Setup when it appears in the results.
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You should see a master toggle labeled Turn on Einstein. Go ahead and switch it on.
It might take Salesforce a few minutes to get everything synced up between Einstein and Data Cloud in the background. Once that’s done, you can move on to the important security and privacy settings.
3. Configure the Einstein Trust Layer
Let’s talk about the big, sometimes scary, topic of AI and data privacy. The Einstein Trust Layer is Salesforce’s way of putting you in control of how your company’s data is handled by large language models (LLMs). This isn’t just a background feature; it’s a set of tools you need to configure.
After you enable Einstein, take some time to set up the Trust Layer to align with your company’s privacy policies. You can find these settings right in the Einstein Setup area. Some key options you’ll want to look at are:
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Sensitive Data Masking: This feature automatically finds and hides personally identifiable information (PII) like names or phone numbers before a prompt is sent to an LLM.
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Audit Trail: This creates a log of all AI interactions, including the prompts people use and the answers the AI gives. It’s incredibly useful for compliance and for reviewing how the tool is being used.
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Toxicity Detection: This helps you filter out and prevent any harmful or inappropriate content from being generated.
4. Activate specific features
Here’s a common "gotcha": flipping that main switch doesn’t mean your teams can suddenly start using all the AI tools. Think of it like unlocking a toolbox; you still need to actually hand out the tools to the right people. The last major step is to go into the setup pages for the specific Einstein products you want to use and switch them on.
For instance:
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For your sales team: You’d go to the Sales Cloud Einstein Setup Assistant to turn on tools like Einstein Opportunity Scoring or Einstein Lead Scoring.
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For your service agents: Head into the Service Cloud setup area to enable things like Einstein Case Classification or Einstein Article Recommendations.
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For your marketers: Look for the Einstein Assistant under Einstein Account Engagement to get help with AI-powered email and landing page copy.
Each of these tools usually has its own setup wizard and requires you to assign specific permission sets to the users who need access.
The challenge: Is enabling the AI enough?
You’ve followed the steps, flipped the switches, and configured the settings. You’re done, right? Well, not quite.
It’s easy to assume that once the AI is enabled, it will just know how to handle everything. But the truth is, enabling the technology is just the first step. For any AI to be genuinely helpful, it needs to be an expert on your company, your specific processes, your unique products, and your customer history.
This is where the real work begins inside Salesforce. You’ll need to spend time in the Prompt Builder to teach Einstein your company’s tone of voice and create templates for different scenarios. You’ll also need to "ground" the AI in your knowledge by connecting it to your Salesforce Knowledge base.
But what about all the crucial information that lives outside of Salesforce? Let’s be honest, your team’s most valuable knowledge is probably scattered everywhere:
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The super-detailed troubleshooting guides living in Confluence or Notion.
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Important project plans and product specs sitting in Google Docs.
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Quick-fix solutions and expert advice casually shared in Slack or Microsoft Teams.
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Thousands of past support conversations in your helpdesk, like Zendesk or Freshdesk, that contain the real voice of your company.
If your AI can’t access these external sources, it can only give generic answers. This leaves your team members stuck, manually digging through different apps to find the information they need, which kind of defeats the purpose of using AI to save time.
A simpler alternative
While Salesforce Einstein is a fantastic tool inside its own world, what if you need an AI that can learn from all your tools, not just the ones with a Salesforce logo? This is where a more flexible and self-serve platform like eesel AI really stands out.
Instead of a drawn-out, multi-stage setup, eesel AI is built for speed and simplicity.
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Get up and running in minutes, not months: You don’t need to sit through mandatory demos or a long onboarding process. With eesel AI, you can sign up and connect your helpdesk (like Zendesk, Freshdesk, or Intercom) with a single click. It’s a truly self-serve platform, so you can build and launch your first AI agent on your own schedule.
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Connect all your knowledge instantly: eesel AI is designed to break down those knowledge silos. It connects to over 100 sources, so it can learn from your past tickets and your Salesforce Knowledge base, but also from Confluence, Google Docs, Slack, and more. This gives your AI a complete picture of your company’s knowledge, so it can give answers that are both accurate and truly helpful.
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Test with confidence before you launch: Rolling out a new AI can feel like a bit of a gamble. eesel AI’s simulation mode takes the guesswork out of it. You can test your AI agent on thousands of your historical tickets to see exactly how it would have responded. This gives you solid forecasts on resolution rates and lets you tweak its behavior in a totally safe environment before it ever talks to a real customer.
The whole workflow with eesel AI is much more direct. You sign up, connect your apps with one-click integrations, customize how you want the AI to behave, and use the simulation tool to make sure it’s ready. It’s all about getting value right away, not getting stuck in a month-long project.
Final thoughts
So there you have it, a clear guide on how to enable Einstein AI in Salesforce. You now know how to check your prerequisites, turn on the main switch, configure the Trust Layer, and activate features for your teams. While Einstein is powerful, this setup is just the beginning of a longer journey to teach the AI the ins and outs of your business.
The biggest hurdle for many companies is bringing together all the knowledge that doesn’t live inside Salesforce. If you’re looking for a faster, simpler way to launch a powerful AI that learns from all of your existing tools, a platform built for flexibility might be a better fit.
Ready to see how an AI can learn from your entire knowledge ecosystem in minutes? Get started with eesel AI for free.
Frequently asked questions
Before enabling Einstein AI, ensure your Salesforce plan is Enterprise, Performance, or Unlimited, and you have the necessary Einstein add-on license. You also need System Administrator permissions and Data Cloud must be provisioned and active in your organization.
The process involves four main stages: verifying Data Cloud is active, turning on the master Einstein toggle, configuring the Einstein Trust Layer for security, and finally, activating specific Einstein features for your users and teams.
The Einstein Trust Layer is crucial for ensuring data privacy and security when using AI. It allows you to configure settings like sensitive data masking, audit trails, and toxicity detection to control how your company’s data interacts with large language models.
No, enabling the master Einstein switch makes the features available for configuration, but you must then individually activate specific AI tools for different teams (e.g., Sales Cloud Einstein, Service Cloud Einstein) and assign appropriate permission sets to users.
After enablement, the crucial work involves grounding the AI in your company’s specific knowledge. This includes using Prompt Builder to define your company’s tone and connecting Einstein to your Salesforce Knowledge base and other external data sources to ensure accurate and relevant responses.
Yes, Data Cloud is a non-negotiable foundation for many of Einstein’s core functions, especially the Einstein Trust Layer. It’s essential that Data Cloud is provisioned and active before proceeding with other Einstein AI setup steps.
Einstein’s generative AI features are specifically available on the Salesforce Enterprise, Performance, and Unlimited editions. You’ll need to check your current edition under Setup > Company Information if you are unsure.
