*By Jacqueline Corba*
Salesforce has saved a seat at its executive meetings for Einstein, an artificial intelligence-powered robot developed by the cloud computing company.
"The fact that we are using our own products to really drive our forecasting, it's pretty amazing," said Bob Stutz, CEO of Salesforce's Marketing Cloud. "It is really great to have that tool that you can use every single day to run your business."
Salesforce's chief executive, Marc Benioff, has been an outspoken proponent of the company's use of A.I., and said that Einstein has [been at every weekly senior staff meeting](http://fortune.com/2018/01/25/salesforce-benioff-einstein-davos-ai/) for the last year.
Stutz said Einstein pulls his weight on a team that has grown its quarterly revenue by 41 percent year over year.
"We are on an incredible tear right now," Stutz said in an interview with Cheddar. "It's really helping customers connect with their consumers across sales, marketing, service ー it's a real growth driver for us nowadays."
For the full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/inside-salesforce-marketing-cloud-growth).
Amazon Alexa Auto Chief Evangelist Arianne Walker told Cheddar she wants Alexa to shift the perception of the in-car digital assistant.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Wednesday, December 18, 2019.
As 2019 puts a bow on the teens, highlights from the year showed fans that the industry is ready and willing to adapt to upheavals in technology and politics while still having some fun along the way.
Mark Groden, founder and CEO of Skyryse, sees the just completed end-to-end autonomous flight of its helicopter called Luna as a large step forward in realizing a new sky-based transportation system.
Joel Flory, CEO of the photo editing app VSCO, discussed the VSCO girl trend and the acquisition of camera and app company, Rylo, in a sitdown with Cheddar.
Cheddar looks back at the high-profile product failures of the year.
The middle-of-the-night moves on Capitol Hill blindsided the solar sector. The industry had launched an ambitious lobbying effort this summer to extend the industry's tax credit and until last night had believed that an extension would be included in the tax packages.
1-800 Contacts, the private-equity-owned online contact lens retailer, is buying 6over6 Vision, an Israeli startup that has pioneered a way for customers to bypass eye doctors and complete in-home eye tests via their smartphones.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Tuesday, December 17, 2019.
The company’s stock fell Monday after a morning report from the newspaper said Boeing would likely make an announcement today. Boeing’s board met Sunday and Monday to determine the future of the plane.
