Salesforce announced the Salesforce Zero Copy Partner Network, a global ecosystem of technology and solution providers building secure, bidirectional zero copy integrations with Salesforce Data Cloud so that data can be actioned across the Salesforce Einstein 1 Platform. Salesforce also unveiled innovations including new zero copy support for open data lakes and lakehouses utilizing the Apache Iceberg open table format, as well as added zero copy support for ISV partners developing data kits to distribute their valuable data sets to Data Cloud customers. Salesforce Data Cloud unifies all the customer data, structured and unstructured, into a unified 360-degree view accessible within Salesforce.

This empowers teams to make data-driven decisions directly in their flow of work. This data goes beyond information access ? it fuels actionable insights.

Imagine automated triggers based on customer behavior, like a Slack message notifying a sales rep when a customer visits a pricing page on their website. This real-time information allows for immediate engagement. Data Cloud also provides the foundation for trusted AI.

By unifying and cleansing the data, ensure AI models operate on the most accurate information. This unlocks the full potential of large language models (LLMs), delivering faster, more cost-effective results. Salesforce previously introduced the concept of zero copy bidirectional integrations with Data Cloud via partnerships with Amazon Redshift, Databricks, Google Cloud?s BigQuery, and Snowflake.

Without zero copy, companies have to rely on custom integrations and complex data pipelines for the integration and movement of data from Salesforce to external data warehouses and vice versa. Unlike traditional extract, transform, and load (ETL) processes and data pipelines, zero copy integration offers businesses a more efficient, secure, and user-friendly way to connect data to business applications. With Salesforce zero copy integrations, organizations can: Access live external data without copying (no reverse ETL): Traditional methods of accessing data from other systems, such as standing up reverse ETL pipelines, are costly and brittle.

Businesses need to build and maintain the connection, then reconcile data changes over time. With zero copy integration, teams in Salesforce can access data from where it lives either through queries or by virtually accessing the file ? and when source data changes, it?s immediately updated everywhere, such as on a vehicle record that displays the mileage and maintenance history of a connected car through a zero copy connection to a lake that houses that data.

Act on data from anywhere in the flow of work: Once in Data Cloud, this unlocked data is part of Salesforce?s metadata framework, and can be used in multiple ways including: generating business intelligence (BI) or AI insights; marketing segmentation or activation; creating unified customer experiences across sales, service, marketing, and commerce; and analytics via Tableau. For example, a Data Cloud-Triggered Flow updates an account manager in Slack when shipments are marked as delayed in an external lake, enabling them to immediately engage their client. Share customer 360 insights back with no copy: Salesforce zero copy integration goes beyond simply reading data from warehouses and data lakes.

It also allows to share valuable insights back to these systems, including harmonized and unified customer data along with AI and BI insights ? all without the need for data replication. Maintain governance and security: Traditional data governance often depends on manually copying data between systems to preserve the integrity of the source data, sacrificing the ability to track data as it moves downstream.

Zero copy integrations eliminate the need for manual data movement, and since data remains in its original location, data lineage is preserved. Additionally, because zero copy integrations enable centralized access control at the data source itself, it simplifies security management and minimizes risks when exposing data to the business. Ground generative AI: With the ability to connect to not only structured data, but unstructured data like PDFs, call transcripts, and emails, zero copy integrations make it quick and easy to bring unified business data into any AI prompt sent through the Einstein Trust Layer.

This lets customers deploy trusted, relevant generative AI across all Salesforce applications without having to fine-tune an off-the-shelf LLM.