Comparing top predictive analytics solutions: Salesforce Einstein and Obviously AI.
- Obviously AI offers no-code AI that integrates with a wide range of tools, including Salesforce, while Salesforce Einstein offers an AI toolset just for Salesforce.
- Obviously AI is built for non-technical people who want AI in clicks, no matter what tool they use, while Salesforce Einstein is better suited to those who focus solely on Salesforce.
It seems like there’s a new Business Intelligence or analytics tool coming out all the time. There are analytics offerings from Amazon (QuickSight), Microsoft (Power BI), Google (Looker), and more. To get the best bang for your buck, and equip your organization with the analytics software it needs to succeed, it’s important to get the right tool for you specifically.
There’s no “one-size-fits-all” solution, which is why many teams find themselves comparing Salesforce Einstein and Obviously AI when looking for the right predictive analytics tool.
Overview
Einstein is a smart CRM assistant specifically for Salesforce, the cloud giant owning Tableau. Einstein’s AI features let you discover insights, predict outcomes, get recommendations, and automate workflows in your Salesforce account. Therefore, if you’re already using Salesforce — and not much else — then Einstein is a no-brainer tool.
In contrast, Obviously AI specializes in no-code AI that can be used anywhere — from Salesforce to Google Analytics to Hubspot to Mailchimp, or even to serve predictions in your app with a REST API.
Price
Einstein is a Salesforce tool, and Salesforce comes at a variety of price-points depending on your needs. The most popular sales and service cloud plan comes in at over $200 USD per user, per month, or over $2,500 a year per user.
Obviously AI goes as low as $75/month for the Basic plan, while the Pro plan offers features like importing from databases and apps, REST API access, manual model selection, and automatic updates. The Pro plan is $145/month, or $1,740 a year, which can be used by up to 10 users, while the Pro Plus plan is extendable to unlimited users.
10 users on Salesforce Enterprise could therefore cost over $25,000 a year, while 10 users on Obviously AI Pro would still cost $1,740 a year.
Setup
The Einstein setup process is fairly straightforward if you’re used to Salesforce, as described in this guide:
- Enable Einstein Analytics for your organization
- Define the main Einstein user types
- Create permission sets to group related user permissions according to the needs of each user type
- Assign a permission set to an individual user, which also auto-assigns Analytics Cloud — the Einstein Analytics platform permission set license to that user
Recall that you can’t use Einstein outside of Salesforce, so the set-up process simply means enabling AI features in Salesforce.
Obviously AI comes with a web-based and an on-premise solution, besides offering a 14-day free trial, which gives you full access to the tool. You can immediately connect data, build an AI model, and deploy it in clicks. After the 14-day trial, you can keep using it by paying for the Basic plan, the Pro plan, or a custom Pro Plus plan.
Integrations
Einstein’s integrations are limited to the Salesforce platform. In other words, you can’t make predictions outside Salesforce.
On the other hand, Obviously AI offers a rich integration ecosystem, including an extremely simple REST API. If you’re less technical, you may want to use the Zapier integration. This is just scratching the surface, and Obviously AI offers many more integrations, including (some are in development) with Airtable, Amazon RedShift, Box, Chartio, Dropbox, Google Analytics, Google BigQuery, HubSpot, Kaggle, Mode, Shopify, Snowflake, Tableau, Typeform, and others.
Sharing Reports
Einstein seemingly offers no clear way to share reports. As one user writes:
“Currently sharing models involves retraining the model.”
That’d be like “sharing” a picture shot from your iPhone by telling your friend to take the same photo. Hopefully, Einstein will build out a shareable reports feature, but for now Google searches for “share Einstein model” are a dead-end.
With Obviously AI, a shareable report can be made in a single click, accessible to anyone, anywhere, even without an Obviously AI account.
Another important feature of Obviously AI’s Pro plan is access to a dedicated data scientist, which you don’t get from Einstein.
Conclusion
When comparing Einstein and Obviously AI, there’s no clear winner, per se. If you have a highly-specific job title, such as Salesforce Developer, then it makes sense to add Einstein to your workflow. If you’re looking to use AI outside of Salesforce, however, then Obviously AI is the way to go.
Einstein vs. Obviously AI aren’t your only options for AI. We’ve also explored other tools like Power BI and Alteryx.
