U.S. tech companies continue to lead the global race in AI development, with key and major tech giants leading the charge. And now, San Francisco-based Salesforce has pledged to invest $500 million in support of new startups through its Generative AI Fund. Paul Drews, the managing partner of Salesforce Ventures, made it clear in a released statement that the company believes the acceleration and development of AI solutions which will transform manufacturing is critical for these types of companies to remain competitive well into the future.

Salesforce has been a leader in CRM solutions since its launch in 1999 by a former Oracle executive. As one of the first Fortune 500 SaaS (software as a service) companies, they have been quick to take on emerging business technologies including Big Data, commerce cloud platforms, digital marketing and analysis, and now, artificial intelligence.

Salesforce is an excellent candidate to support these emerging AI entrepreneurs, since it has already acquired many business and technology startups that range from web conference service providers to the popular office messaging platform Slack Technologies. One of its most notable and recent partnerships has been with CloudStreet, a firm that has successfully implemented B2B stores for manufacturers in the industrial, IT services, and consumer goods sectors.

CloudStreet works directly with Salesforce users on best practices for implementation and optimization, while also serving clients that may have difficulty customizing the Salesforce system to meet their unique business requirements. CloudStreet also helps these same companies overcome the financial burden of hiring in-house developers, which can present extremely high overhead costs.

There are a number of different artificial intelligence platforms that have been successfully applied on the factory floor. For example, Reactive AI machinery is task-specific, and relies specifically on machine learning rather than on programmed memory. For example, self-driving cars and Deep Blue, IBM’s chess-playing AI system, are designed to respond to external stimuli.

Generative AI is driven by algorithms in the computer’s memory that can create new information. This can be political news content, audio and graphic simulations, and a host of other customer-facing solutions like ChatGPT, which is capable of quite human-like conversations in which the AI system independently generates answers to almost any questions, writes essays or high-level code, and can even compose the perfect email to snag the perfect job.

Generative AI unleashes creativity that rivals human imagination. For example, an AI-generated work of artwork entitled “Portrait of Edmond de Belamy” was recently sold at a Christie’s auction for a stunning $432,500 – giving recognition and value to AI-generated artwork. The technology used was the Generative Adversarial Network algorithm (GAN) along with a wealth of information from 15,000 portraits.

GANs use deep learning methods, that are similar to unsupervised machine learning. The algorithms can automatically discover (or create) patterns and regularities found in data inputs in such a way that it will generate new and plausible examples based on the information gleaned from the original datasets. It is truly a clever training model that can create new examples which can be adversarial or non-contradictory.

Salesforce has recognized the power that can be leveraged from generative AI, and when it comes to manufacturing, GAN-based AI goes above and beyond Reactive AI. By helping AI start-ups, especially those who are developing AI-based solutions for manufacturing, the company is expanding its own footprint into purpose-built AI technology that can support not only production and profit, but also sustainability and safety.

AI has already disrupted industrial markets, but it has yet to fulfill the old prophecy that robots can and will replace humans in manufacturing. And, generative AI is not projected to take the place of a human workforce, either. Instead, we’ve witnessed AI and robotics take on the most dangerous and toxic roles on the factory floor, to the benefit of both employees and corporations.

Generative AI is a transformative leap into AI-based industrial solutions, such as optimizing processes, detecting machine performance issues, forecasting the remaining usefulness of equipment, and predicting future needs such as inventory, personnel, and equipment. When manufacturers can maximize operational performance, they become more competitive, more lean, and more cost-effective.

Salesforce expects generative AI and its deep learning solutions will unlock new levels of economic potential and create exciting business opportunities as AI-based startups move from the collection, analysis, and selling of consumer or market data to optimizing and augmenting human potential.

Fundamental to investor concerns when it comes to AI VC, is whether the entrepreneur is solving an important problem, and is that solution one that business owners or their customers are willing to consider and pay for. Salesforce already uses sales intelligence and productivity solutions that can leverage AI analytics for sales forecasting by turning customer data into lead prioritization and generation.

While it may still be in the early stages of this burgeoning industry, Salesforce realizes that many factors must be addressed if these companies are to be successful. Mastery over their data, and generating data that has value, are two key investor concerns. The investor frenzy into AI start-ups have been led by tech giants like SalesForce, Google, Apple, Facebook, and Microsoft.

AI-based venture capital funding for start-ups reached approximately $9.3 billion in the U.S. in 2018. This outdoes the amount of capital expenditure for all 3 industrial revolutions of the past, which include mechanization, fossil and electric energy, and electronics/computers.

Today, for an AI start-up to secure the massive funding it needs to fulfill its business model, clarity must be at the forefront on how the technology will impact or disrupt manufacturing or the front office. In most all industries from healthcare to transportation, and from manufacturing to research, AI can increase efficiency, assist in recruiting, manage administrative tasks, optimize customer service, and promote safety and productivity.

The $500 million pledged by Salesforce will go a long way to helping entrepreneurs develop AI technology that works with manufacturing, and not against it.