I tested a dozen Salesforce AI tools. These are the 6 I'd actually use in 2025.

The Salesforce world is buzzing with AI, and frankly, it can be a lot. It feels like every day there's a new tool promising to change everything. You’ve got Salesforce's own heavy hitters like Einstein and Agentforce, plus a whole universe of third-party apps. How are you supposed to figure out what your sales, service, or dev teams actually need?

I decided to get my hands dirty and test the top contenders to see what's real and what's just noise. This isn't another feature list copied from a marketing site. It's my honest breakdown of what works, how painful (or easy) it is to get started, and where each tool really shines. We'll look at everything from built-in prediction engines to clever AI layers that sit on top of your helpdesk, giving you a clear path forward.

Types of Salesforce AI tools

At their core, Salesforce AI tools are just apps that use artificial intelligence to make life easier inside Salesforce. They help automate repetitive tasks, dig up useful insights from your data, and generally smooth out your team’s workflows. They usually come in two flavors:

1. Native Salesforce AI: These are the tools built right into the Salesforce platform. Think Einstein, which handles things like predicting which leads are hot, or Agentforce, which lets you build your own AI bots. The upside is they're deeply connected to your CRM data, but they can be a major project to set up and are pretty much walled off inside the Salesforce garden.

2. Third-Party AI Tools: These are apps from other companies that connect to Salesforce. They can be anything from general-purpose writing assistants like ChatGPT to developer tools like GitHub Copilot. Some, like eesel AI, act as a smart layer that connects to your helpdesk (including Salesforce Service Cloud) and other knowledge sources to automate work without making you switch platforms.

My review criteria

To create a list that's actually useful, I judged every tool against a few straightforward questions that matter to real teams:

• Ease of Setup: How long does it take to get this thing running? I gave extra points to tools that didn't require a six-month implementation project and a team of developers.

• Primary Use Case: What is this tool really for? Is it for sales, customer service, marketing, or code? A clear focus was important.

• Integration Depth: How well does it play with others? I looked at how it connects not just to Salesforce, but to other places your team works, like Slack, Confluence, or Google Docs.

• Customization and Control: Can you actually tweak the AI to match how your team works and how you want to sound? Or are you stuck with a one-size-fits-all bot?

• Return on Investment (ROI): Does it clearly save time, cut costs, or move the needle on your metrics? Is the value obvious?

A quick comparison of the top tools

Here’s a bird's-eye view of my top picks for 2025. Each one has its place, but the right choice for you will depend on whether you need something deeply embedded in Salesforce or a more flexible tool that can be up and running this afternoon.

Tool	Best For	Core Function	Setup Time	Pricing Model
eesel AI	Customer Service & ITSM	Autonomous support agent & copilot	Minutes	Subscription (flat fee)
Salesforce Einstein	Sales & Marketing Teams	Predictive analytics & insights	Weeks to Months	Add-on / Included in high-tier plans
Salesforce Agentforce	Enterprise Automation	Building custom AI agents	Months	Add-on (usage-based)
ChatGPT & Gemini	Content & Brainstorming	General-purpose text generation	Instant	Freemium / Subscription
Slack AI	Internal Collaboration	Conversation summaries & search	Minutes	Add-on to Slack plans
GitHub Copilot	Developers	AI-powered code completion	Minutes	Subscription

The 6 top Salesforce AI tools for 2025

Alright, let's get into the details of the tools that earned a spot on the list.

1. eesel AI

A screenshot of the eesel AI landing page, a key tool in any Salesforce best AI tools guide.

What I like about eesel AI is that it doesn't try to make you overhaul your entire workflow. Instead, it plugs into the helpdesk you already use (like Zendesk, Intercom, or Salesforce Service Cloud) and learns from everything you've already written: past tickets, knowledge base articles, and docs scattered across Confluence and Google Docs. From there, it can act as an autonomous agent to handle common questions, draft replies for your human agents, or automatically route tickets.

The biggest win here is the speed and control. You can be live in minutes, not months. It has a clever simulation mode that lets you test how the AI would have handled last week's tickets, so you can see exactly how it performs before a single customer talks to it. You get to set the rules for what the AI handles, so you never have to worry about it trying to tackle a super complex or sensitive issue.

• Pros: Setup is incredibly fast and you can do it yourself. It connects all your knowledge sources together, not just what's in Salesforce. The simulation mode is great for building trust before you go live.

• Cons: It isn't a native Salesforce product, so it works as a connected layer. It's also very focused on customer service and internal support, so it's not a general-purpose tool.

• Pricing: eesel AI's pricing is straightforward. You get a flat fee, not a charge for every ticket it solves.

  • Team: $299/month ($239/month if billed annually). This gets you up to 3 bots, 1,000 AI interactions a month, the AI Copilot for your agents, and a Slack integration.

  • Business: $799/month ($639/month if billed annually). This gives you unlimited bots, 3,000 interactions, and adds the full AI Agent, training on past tickets, and the bulk simulation feature.

  • Custom: You can talk to their sales team for bigger plans with more features and unlimited interactions.

2. Salesforce Einstein

A screenshot of the Salesforce Einstein landing page, a key tool in any Salesforce best AI tools guide.

Einstein is Salesforce's original AI, baked right into the Sales, Service, and Marketing Clouds. Its main job is to predict things. It looks at all your CRM data and comes up with stuff like Opportunity Scoring (which deals are most likely to close?), Lead Scoring, and sales forecasting. For sales teams, it means less time guessing and more time talking to the right people.

Because it lives inside Salesforce, it has access to all your customer data, which makes its predictions pretty sharp. The catch is that getting it to work well requires a lot of setup and, most importantly, clean and organized data.

• Pros: It’s seamlessly integrated into the Salesforce interface you use every day. It uses your existing CRM data to give you helpful recommendations right where you need them.

• Cons: It can be a real headache to configure correctly, and its insights are only as good as the data you have inside Salesforce. Many of the best features are locked behind expensive add-ons.

• Pricing: Good luck finding a simple price for Einstein. Some basic features are bundled into the higher-end Salesforce plans (Enterprise and up), but the really powerful stuff is sold as separate add-ons. You'll have to talk to a Salesforce rep to get a quote.

3. Salesforce Agentforce

A screenshot of the Salesforce Agentforce landing page, a key tool in any Salesforce best AI tools guide.

Agentforce (which used to be called Einstein Copilot) is Salesforce's toolkit for building your own conversational AI agents. It gives you a set of "builders" (Copilot Builder, Prompt Builder, etc.) to design AI bots that can do things like answer questions, perform tasks, and kick off workflows across the Salesforce platform.

It's a really powerful option for big companies that want to create very specific AI experiences based on their CRM data. For instance, you could build an agent that helps a sales rep put together a custom quote. But this is not a plug-and-play tool. It's a serious commitment in terms of time, money, and technical skill.

• Pros: It's highly customizable, built directly on the Salesforce platform, and comes with enterprise-level security through the Einstein Trust Layer.

• Cons: You need some serious technical chops (and budget) to build and maintain these agents. The cost can be a non-starter for smaller teams, and it pulls you even deeper into the Salesforce ecosystem.

• Pricing: Like Einstein, Agentforce pricing is a bit of a mystery. It's a paid add-on, and the cost usually depends on your usage. You have to go through the whole sales process to find out what it will cost, which makes it tough to compare with other tools.

4. ChatGPT & Google Gemini

A screenshot of the ChatGPT landing page, a key tool in any Salesforce best AI tools guide.

Even though they aren't built for Salesforce, tools like ChatGPT and Gemini have become go-to assistants for a lot of teams. They're fantastic at writing tasks. Sales reps use them to draft emails, support agents use them to summarize case notes, and marketing folks use them to brainstorm campaign slogans.

A screenshot of the Google Gemini landing page, a key tool in any Salesforce best AI tools guide.

Their biggest strength is their versatility. The main drawback is that they have no idea what's going on inside your CRM. Their answers are generic and you have to double-check everything for accuracy. Plus, pasting sensitive customer data into a public tool is a big security no-no.

• Pros: Super flexible for all kinds of writing tasks, easy to use, and a great way to get past writer's block.

• Cons: They aren't connected to your company's real-time data, so outputs can be generic or just plain wrong. They also pose a security risk if your team isn't careful.

• Pricing:

  • ChatGPT: Has a solid free version. Paid plans start with Plus ($20/month) for better access and go up to Business ($25/user/month) for a secure team environment.

  • Gemini: The standard version is free. Gemini Advanced is part of the Google One AI Premium plan, which is usually around $19.99/month.

5. Slack AI

A screenshot of the Slack AI landing page, a key tool in any Salesforce best AI tools guide.

Ever since Salesforce bought Slack, the two have become more and more connected, and Slack AI is a big part of that. It helps your team find information and get the gist of conversations without ever leaving Slack. You can get daily recaps, search for answers across all your company's channels, and get a quick summary of a thread you don't have time to read.

If your team practically lives in Slack and uses it to discuss everything Salesforce-related, this is a huge time-saver. It just makes all that conversational knowledge easier to find and use.

• Pros: Fits perfectly into the Slack workflow you already have. It's great for getting up to speed on conversations quickly.

• Cons: It's 100% confined to Slack. It won't help you with any tasks inside of Salesforce itself.

• Pricing: Slack AI is built into their paid plans.

  • Pro: $8.75/user/month ($7.25 if paid annually) includes the AI search and summaries.

  • Business+: $15/user/month ($12.50 annually) adds more advanced features like daily recaps.

  • Enterprise Grid: Custom pricing for large organizations.

6. GitHub Copilot

A screenshot of the GitHub Copilot landing page, a key tool in any Salesforce best AI tools guide.

For developers working on Salesforce, GitHub Copilot is a must-have. It's like having an AI partner who suggests code as you type. It’s been trained on mountains of public code, including Apex and Lightning Web Components (LWC), so it can seriously speed up the development process.

It helps with writing boilerplate code, generating tests, and even learning new ways to write things. The suggestions aren't always perfect and need a human to review them, but it drastically cuts down on the time spent on boring, repetitive coding.

• Pros: Plugs right into popular editors like VS Code, knows Apex and LWC, and makes development so much faster.

• Cons: The code it suggests isn't always optimized for Salesforce-specific things like governor limits, so an experienced developer needs to check its work.

• Pricing: It's a subscription service.

  • Copilot Individual: $10 a month or $100 a year.

  • Copilot Business: $19 per user per month.

  • Copilot Enterprise: $39 per user per month.

How to choose the right Salesforce AI tool

So, with all these options, how do you pick one? Here's a simple way to think about it:

1. What problem are you actually trying to solve? Are you trying to reduce the number of common support tickets, get more accurate sales forecasts, or help your devs code faster? Your main goal will point you in the right direction. For automating customer support, a purpose-built tool like eesel AI makes the most sense. For sales predictions, you're probably best off with the native Salesforce Einstein.

2. What's your timeline and budget? Do you have a team of developers and several months to dedicate to a project? If so, Salesforce Agentforce offers a ton of power. If you need to see results by next Friday and don't have a huge budget, look for a no-code tool you can set up yourself, like eesel AI or Slack AI.

3. Where does your team's knowledge live? Is all your important info locked away in Salesforce? Then the native tools might be enough. But if your team's brain is spread across Confluence, Google Docs, past support tickets, and random PDFs, you need a tool like eesel AI that can pull all of that together.

This video provides an overview of essential AI tools for Salesforce that can transform business processes.

A final tip: Add, don't replace

The age of AI is definitely here for Salesforce users, but that doesn't mean you have to sign up for a massive, multi-year project with a single vendor. While native tools like Einstein and Agentforce are powerful, they often come with a high price tag, long setup times, and lock you into one ecosystem.

Often, a smarter move is to add specialized AI tools that are really good at solving one specific problem. For customer service and internal support teams, the goal is to get people fast, accurate answers and automate the boring stuff. A tool like eesel AI lets you do that in minutes by connecting to the tools you already have, giving you the power of a custom-trained AI without all the heavy lifting.

You can enhance what you have instead of ripping it all out and starting over.

Ready to see how an AI support agent could change your customer service? Try eesel AI for free and see for yourself in under 5 minutes.