Einstein Activity Capture: What It Is, How It Works, Limitations & Alternatives Buyer’s Guide 15 min August 27, 2026 If your sales team works in Gmail or Outlook while your revenue teams work in Salesforce, there is an obvious gap: customer activity happens outside the CRM. Emails are sent. Meetings happen. New stakeholders enter conversations. But unless that activity makes its way into Salesforce, your CRM can never provide a complete picture of the customer relationship. That’s the problem Einstein Activity Capture (EAC) is designed to solve. Einstein Activity Capture automatically captures email and calendar activity from connected Microsoft or Google accounts and associates it with relevant Salesforce records. It reduces manual data entry and gives sales teams greater visibility into customer interactions. (Salesforce) Before Summer ’25, captured EAC email data lived outside standard Salesforce records. It wasn’t available to many Salesforce Platform features, couldn’t be exported in the same way as standard records, and was subject to EAC-specific retention limitations. Starting in Summer ’25, Salesforce introduced Sync Email as Salesforce Activity. With it enabled, EAC stores captured email as standard Salesforce ‘Task’ and ‘EmailMessage’ records. The data can be used in standard reports, workflows, triggers, SOQL and APIs. (Salesforce) Salesforce is now migrating older EAC implementations to the new architecture as well, with automatic migration dates rolling out during 2026. (Salesforce). This guide looks at how Einstein Activity Capture works in 2026, what it does today, what it costs, where it stops, and what to do about it. Get our latest insights into your inbox What Is Einstein Activity Capture? Einstein Activity Capture is Salesforce’s activity-capture capability for automatically bringing email and calendar activity into Salesforce. It connects with Microsoft and Google accounts and can capture emails, calendar events, contact activity and meeting activity. Captured emails can now be stored as Salesforce EmailMessage and Task records and associated with relevant users, contacts, leads, accounts and opportunities. Salesforce’s matching logic can also be customized using Flow. (Salesforce) The basic workflow is: Gmail / Microsoft 365 → Einstein Activity Capture → Email + calendar activity → Salesforce records → Reports + automation + APIs + AI For many organizations, that’s exactly what they need. The question is what happens after the activity reaches Salesforce. How to Set Up Einstein Activity Capture Setting up Einstein Activity Capture involves three main steps: connect your email account, configure capture settings, and configure how Salesforce matches activity to CRM records. 1. Check your prerequisites Before you begin, make sure: You’re using Salesforce Lightning Experience with the required EAC license. Your organization uses a supported Microsoft 365/Exchange or Google Workspace environment. Your Salesforce admin has the required permissions. Your Microsoft or Google administrator is available to approve the required OAuth/connection permissions. For Microsoft 365, Salesforce now uses Microsoft Graph for EAC connections. 2. Connect your email and calendar In Salesforce: Setup → Quick Find → Einstein Activity Capture → Settings From here, an admin can configure the EAC connection and capture settings, then assign users to the configuration. Depending on your setup, you can configure: Email and calendar capture Privacy settings Header-only email capture Sync Email as Salesforce Activity The last option is particularly important in current EAC implementations because it stores captured email as standard Salesforce activity records such as EmailMessage and Task. 3. Configure email-to-record matching Salesforce uses the Activities: Match Email to Records Flow to determine which Salesforce records captured emails should be associated with. Find it under: Setup → Flows → Activities: Match Email to Records The default Flow matches email addresses against Users, Contacts, Leads, Accounts and Opportunities. Admins can use Save As to create a customized version if they need different matching logic. 4. Test before rolling it out Send a few test emails and verify that they’re being associated with the right Contact, Lead, Account or Opportunity. This step matters because capturing an email and correctly associating it with the right CRM record are two different things. In short: Connect → Configure capture → Configure matching → Test. That is the setup flow a Salesforce admin actually needs to follow. What Einstein Activity Capture Does Well If you’re evaluating Salesforce activity capture options, EAC is generally a good fit for organizations that want core activity capture up and running quickly, without investing heavily in custom configuration or development. It tends to work best when you’re looking for: 1. It removes manual activity logging Sales reps don’t have to remember to manually log every email or meeting. That’s still EAC’s fundamental value proposition. 2. It is deeply integrated with Salesforce For organizations already running Salesforce, EAC provides a native way to connect email and calendar activity with CRM data. 3. Captured email is now Salesforce data With Sync Email as Salesforce Activity, captured emails can be used by standard Salesforce reports, workflows, triggers and APIs. (Salesforce) 4. Matching can be customized Salesforce provides the Activities: Match Email to Records Flow, which administrators can customize to change how captured emails are associated with CRM records. (Salesforce) 5. Salesforce is continuing to invest in the architecture Salesforce is retiring its older Activity 360 Reporting, Activity Metrics and Activities Dashboard capabilities in favor of standard Salesforce activity data. (Salesforce) So the fair assessment isn’t: “EAC is an old, limited activity-capture tool.” It’s: EAC has become a more capable Salesforce-native activity data layer. Einstein Activity Capture Limitations in 2026 The important question in 2026 isn’t whether EAC can capture activity. It can. The question is whether capturing activity automatically gives revenue teams the intelligence they need. Often, it doesn’t. 1. Email aliases aren’t supported Salesforce’s own documentation states that EAC sends email only from the connected account and that alias addresses aren’t supported. Email aliases also can’t be authenticated as separate connected accounts. (Salesforce) For organizations where reps operate with multiple sending identities, this can create gaps between the way people communicate and the way Salesforce captures that communication. 2. EAC doesn’t automatically create an Opportunity Contact Role (OCR) from every interaction EAC

2026 Guide for Enterprise GTM Teams Seeking Backstory (People.ai) Alternatives Buyer’s Guide 11 min Jan 27, 2026 Updated: August 13, 2026 A quick note before you read further: People.ai rebranded to Backstory in April 2026, repositioning as a “Revenue Answers Platform” with a conversational AI layer on top of its existing activity-capture technology. Same underlying company and core capture technology, new name and pitch. This guide refers to it as Backstory throughout, noting the People.ai history where it’s directly relevant (its Gartner recognition, for instance, was announced under the People.ai name). Introduction: Two Different Approaches to the Same Problem Both Backstory and Nektar operate in the revenue data capture category, helping enterprises automatically capture GTM activity and enrich their CRM using AI. However, they solve fundamentally different problems for different buyers. Backstory (formerly People.ai) is an established revenue intelligence platform with strong analytics capabilities, recognition as a Visionary in the 2025 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Revenue Action Orchestration (awarded under the People.ai name, prior to the April 2026 rebrand), and a mature suite of tools including ClosePlan, account planning, and leadership dashboards, now layered with a conversational query interface as part of its Backstory repositioning. Nektar is an advanced data-first GTM telemetry solution focused on delivering clean, accurate, AI-ready CRM data directly into standard Salesforce objects, designed specifically for enterprises that want to power their existing BI stacks rather than adopt another analytics platform. This guide is intended for GTM leaders, RevOps leaders, Sales Operations teams, and Data teams evaluating both solutions. It draws on direct enterprise evaluation feedback, product analysis, and independent research to help you determine which solution fits your specific needs. Get our latest insights into your inbox Who This Guide Is For This comparison is most relevant if your organization: Already operates a mature BI stack (Databricks, Snowflake, Looker, Tableau) Has dedicated RevOps or SalesOps teams building custom analytics Prioritizes CRM data accuracy over out-of-the-box dashboards Needs granular control over what data syncs to Salesforce Requires specific detail around internal and external participation or meeting attendance intelligence (not just invitee data) If your priority is comprehensive analytics UI, pre-built dashboards, and account planning tools, Backstory may be the stronger fit for your organization. But if you’re looking to solve the data problem at its core without the additional enablement effort of new training, Nektar is a better bet. This guide focuses on scenarios where data infrastructure is the primary buying criterion. The Core Difference: Analytics-First vs Data-First The fundamental difference between these platforms comes down to philosophy, and the April 2026 rebrand sharpened rather than changed this distinction: Backstory is built around the premise that revenue teams need better analytics and insights delivered through their platform, now explicitly reframed around conversational, natural-language answers rather than dashboards alone. Data capture exists to power those answers, scorecards, and AI-driven recommendations. Nektar is built around the premise that enterprises already have analytics tools they trust. What they lack is clean, accurate, complete, unified rep activity data in the CRM to feed those tools. Nektar focuses on being the best possible data layer, not an additional interface to learn. Neither approach is inherently superior; they serve different organizational needs. The question is which approach matches your GTM infrastructure strategy, and whether a conversational interface actually solves your problem or just adds a new way to ask a question the underlying data still can’t fully answer. Considering an Alternative to Backstory? See how Nektar delivers 90%+ attribution accuracy directly into your Salesforce, without the Backstory price tag. Check Side-by-side Feature Comparison Why Enterprises Evaluate Backstory Alternatives Based on conversations with enterprise buyers evaluating both platforms, several consistent themes emerge: Existing Analytics Investment Many large enterprises have already invested significantly in Databricks, Snowflake, Looker, or Tableau. Their internal ops teams build custom dashboards tailored to their specific sales motions. For these organizations, adopting another analytics platform, conversational interface or not, creates redundancy rather than value. They want the underlying data, not another UI. Salesforce Integration Model Backstory (like People.ai before it) uses a managed package approach that creates custom objects in Salesforce. While this provides rich functionality within Backstory’s own ecosystem, some enterprises report challenges including: Additional automation required to map data into standard Salesforce fields Complexity when using captured data in existing workflows or forecasting Duplicate participant records requiring cleanup Nektar writes directly to standard Salesforce objects (Events, Tasks, Contacts), which can simplify integration with existing processes but may offer less specialized functionality. Meeting Attendance Requirements A significant differentiator for some buyers is meeting attendance intelligence. Backstory’s meeting data typically relies on calendar invites and recorded calls via conversation-intelligence platform integrations. Nektar captures both invitees and actual attendees, along with meeting status (completed, cancelled, no-show, under 10 minutes), without requiring recording. For organizations focused on coaching, churn analysis, or executive involvement tracking, this distinction can be decisive, and it isn’t something a conversational query layer on top of the same underlying capture gap actually solves. Data Volume Control Some enterprises express concern about data volume and Salesforce storage costs. Nektar offers granular sync controls that let administrators define which activities to capture, which contacts to create, and what thresholds to apply. Backstory’s capture approach may generate higher data volumes, which can be beneficial for analytics but challenging for storage-conscious organizations. Category Nektar.ai Backstory (formerly People.ai) Salesforce data model Standard objects (Events, Tasks, Contacts) Managed package with custom objects Opportunity Matching AI/ML graph-based, self-learning Rule-based, configurable Meeting Attendance Invitees + actual attendees + meeting status Primarly invitee-based, recorded calls via CI partners Meeting Intelligence Source Direct Zoom/Teams integration (no recording required) CI platform integration (Gong, Zoom IQ, Webex) Engagement Scoring Customizable, writes to Salesforce fields Pre-defined, displayed in analytics UI Multi-user Attribution All internal users + external contacts Primarily organizer-focused Noise Control Granular sync rules and filters Comprehensive capture approach Analytics & Dashboards Minimal (Data-focused) Comprehensive built-in analytics Account Planning Not a primary focus Strong (ClosePlan, org charts) Data Portability Standard objects, no lock-in Managed package migration required Best for Data-first