Pay Per Chat

Salesforce is launching its AI-powered Agentforce platform across its key clouds, including Sales, Service, Marketing, and Commerce. However, a significant question remains: Will enterprises be willing to pay $2 per conversation for Agentforce, especially without volume discounts?

The introduction of Agentforce wasn’t unexpected, as CEO Marc Benioff has been discussing autonomous AI agents since the company’s second-quarter earnings call. Leading up to Dreamforce, Salesforce has consistently emphasized agentic AI, with Benioff previously hinting at the $2 per conversation pricing model.

Agentforce is part of Salesforce’s ongoing effort to move beyond generative AI copilots to fully autonomous digital agents that can perform tasks independently. Much of this technology stems from Salesforce’s acquisition of Airkit.ai last year. Additionally, the company’s acquisition of Own highlights a strategic, smaller-scale approach to mergers and acquisitions.

The core of Salesforce’s AI vision is a blend of human expertise and AI agents. While humans focus on relationship-building, industry knowledge, and goal-setting, AI agents will handle tasks like answering questions, scheduling meetings, and gathering information.

Key features of Agentforce include:

Data Cloud: The hub of Agentforce, centralizing all customer and metadata across Salesforce apps.
Atlas Reasoning Engine: The brain behind Agentforce, built on proprietary code that simulates human-like thinking and planning, refining queries and executing tasks.
Native Integrations: Agentforce integrates with MuleSoft, Salesforce Flow, and Apex.
Agent Builders: Tools such as Agent Builder, Model Builder, and Prompt Builder allow for customization of AI agents.
Partner Ecosystem: Partners like AWS, Google, IBM, and Workday have created over 20 agents and actions available on Salesforce AppExchange.
Launch Dates: Agentforce for Service and Sales will be generally available on October 25, with Atlas Reasoning Engine components arriving in February.

Pay Per Chat?

Salesforce is unifying its clouds under a single platform, with Data Cloud as the common thread connecting Sales, Service, Marketing, Commerce, and Tableau. According to Constellation Research analyst Holger Mueller, the real story is the infrastructure behind the agents, which will drive innovation in the future of work by enhancing developer velocity and productivity.

At Dreamforce, Salesforce also unveiled Einstein Sales Agents, including a Sales Development Representative (SDR) agent and a Sales Coach, designed to improve sales performance. Salesforce highlighted that agents, unlike traditional bots, are dynamic, outcome-driven, and capable of adapting to various situations.

Beyond sales, the Agentforce lineup includes:

Service Agent: Replacing chatbots with more adaptive AI.
Merchant: Assisting ecommerce merchandisers with promotions, site setup, and insights.
Buyer: Helping customers find products, purchase them, and track orders via chat or portals.
Personal Shopper: Acting as a concierge for ecommerce platforms.
Campaign Optimizer: Automating and optimizing marketing campaigns.

Agentforce is poised to serve as the connective tissue, unifying Salesforce’s various clouds and driving value with ongoing innovations in Data Cloud and AI.