UPDATED 03:08 EDT / JUNE 02 2015

NEWS

Salesforce gets a digital assistant with Tempo acquisition

Salesforce.com, Inc. has acquired Tempo, maker of the smart, artificial intelligence-powered calendar app of the same name, for an undisclosed amount.

The deal means that Tempo will no longer be available to new users, and the software will be discontinued for existing users on June 30.

Tempo is an interesting buy for Salesforce. It’s a calendar app that integrates with your email, social media accounts and web databases, and relies artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies to create your schedule for you.

Tempo can automatically pull up the address of your next meeting, or provide a weather forecast on the day of your appointment, much like Google Now. It can also look at past meetings, and make suggestions about who should attend.

Interestingly, Tempo was incubated by SRI International, which is the same organization that built Siri for Apple.

Tempo will now be absorbed into Salesforce, and the app’s founders said it will “give us the opportunity to continue our mission at a much larger scale.”

What isn’t clear is exactly how Tempo will be incorporated into Salesforce’s enormous CRM software platform. Of late, Salesforce has been pushing into Big Data analytics, integrating its Wave platform with popular Big Data technologies like Hadoop. Certainly, Tempo’s scheduling abilities should be a big help for Salesforce’s customers, many of whom are marketers or salespersons.

Salesforce isn’t the only big tech company with an interest in artificial intelligence. Apple’s Siri has been around for quite some time, and Microsoft is making loud noises about Cortana’s integration with Windows 10. Recently, Google announced a new “Now on Tap” function for Google Now, which pushes relevant information direct to your smartphone.

Expect to learn more about how Salesforce plans to integrate Tempo at its annual Dreamforce conference in September.

Photo Credit: kurichan+ via Compfight cc

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