CRM Vendors Expand Capabilities Beyond Traditional Interface

Salesforce and HubSpot are expanding their customer relationship management (CRM) capabilities beyond the traditional CRM interface. Salesforce's AIforce umbrella includes ClaudeForce, which brings Salesforce context and actions into external tools like Slack and Anthropic's Claude. This allows employees to access and update customer records without leaving these applications.

HubSpot has introduced its self-updating Smart CRM, which automatically captures and syncs calls, emails, and meetings to ensure sales, marketing, and service teams have a current view of the customer. Zeotap's Open CDP takes a different approach by running on the customer's own lakehouse, giving them control over their data.

The increasing use of AI agents in CRM systems raises concerns about data completeness and accountability. Salesforce positions itself as the governed system underneath AI interactions, ensuring that records, metadata, business rules, and identity controls follow employees and agents wherever they work. However, this requires a heavier governance burden on leaders to track which customer data is accessible and what modifications are recorded.

Pricing for AI service agents is also evolving, with Salesforce launching per-resolution pricing for its Help Agent in July 2026 at $2 per autonomous resolution. HubSpot has cut the price of its Breeze Customer Agent to $0.50 per resolved conversation, down from $1.00 previously.