IBM Corp. and Salesforce.com Inc. are expanding their partnership on all things artificial intelligence by integrating Big Blue’s Cloud and Watson services with the Salesforce’s Quip and Service Cloud Einstein products.

The company’s alliance was struck last March, when the pair announced they’d be integrating Watson with Salesforce’s relatively newer Einstein AI tech. At the time, analysts said the partnership effectively meant IBM was becoming a kind of AI consulting partner for Salesforce, allowing it to sell new services across both Einstein and Watson.

The original partnership announcement was followed by the launch of new services, including IBM Cloud Integration for Salesforce, which helps connect enterprise and external data that sits outside a company’s customer relationship management system for better insights. The companies also announced Weather Company Insights for Salesforce, which allows users to integrate weather data inside the Salesforce platform.

Today’s announcement relates to more AI-powered apps and services. In statement, IBM said it’s building a series of new IBM Watson Quip Live Apps, which combine the power of Watson with Salesforce’s Quip platform for business collaboration and document creation. The interactive, custom-built applications will be embedded into Quip documents, IBM said.

The companies are also expanding their original IBM Cloud Integration for Salesforce offering with new “AI-driven recommendations for next best actions,” officials said. What this means is that users will be able to create personalized, customer-triggered interactions based on their most recent calls and chats, helping build stronger connections between them.

“The success of our customers drives everything we do at Salesforce, including our strategic partnership with IBM,” Salesforce Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Marc Benioff (pictured, alongside IBM CEO Ginni Rometty) said in a statement. “The combination of IBM Cloud and Watson services with Salesforce Einstein and Quip will deliver even more innovation to empower companies to connect with their customers in a whole new way, leveraging the power of the cloud and AI.”

Finally, the companies have moved to formalize their strategic partnership. IBM said it has named Salesforce as its “preferred customer engagement platform sales and service,” while while Salesforce has named IBM as a “preferred” cloud services provider.

Image: IBM