AI Agents Archives - gettectonic.com

27Sep

Salesforce AI Evolves with the Generative AI Landscape

Salesforce AI: Powering Customer Relationship Management Salesforce is a leading CRM solution that has long delivered cutting-edge cloud technologies to manage customer relationships effectively. In recent months, the platform has further advanced with the integration of generative AI and AI-powered features, primarily through its AI engine, Einstein. Salesforce AI Evolves with the Generative AI Landscape. To explore how AI operates within the Salesforce ecosystem and how various business teams can leverage these innovations, this guide delves into Salesforce’s AI capabilities, products, and features. Salesforce AI: Transforming CRM Capabilities Salesforce remains a top choice in the CRM software market, offering one of the most comprehensive solutions for managing relationships across departments, industries, and initiatives. Through dedicated cloud platforms, Salesforce enables teams to oversee marketing, sales, customer service, e-commerce, and more, with tools focused on delivering enhanced customer experiences supported by powerful data analytics. With the introduction of generative AI, Salesforce has significantly elevated its native automation, workflow management, data analytics, and assistive capabilities for customer lifecycle management. Einstein Copilot exemplifies this innovation, aiding internal users with tasks such as outreach, analysis, and improving external user experiences. What is Salesforce Einstein? Salesforce Einstein is an AI-driven suite of tools integrated natively into various Salesforce Cloud applications, including Sales Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Service Cloud, and Commerce Cloud. It also operates through assistive technologies like Einstein Copilot. Einstein is built on a multitenant platform and incorporates numerous automated machine learning features to unify organizational data with CRM capabilities. Designed to make intelligent, data-driven decisions, Einstein requires no additional installation, offering a seamless user experience when paired with a compatible subscription plan. 7 Key Features of Salesforce Einstein 7 Applications of Salesforce Einstein Future Trends in Salesforce AI Bottom Line: Salesforce AI Evolves with the Generative AI Landscape Salesforce continues to enhance its AI-powered features, keeping pace with advancements in generative and predictive AI. Whether new to the platform or a seasoned user, Salesforce offers innovative, AI-centric solutions to streamline customer relationship management and business operations. Like1 Related Posts Salesforce OEM AppExchange Expanding its reach beyond CRM, Salesforce.com has launched a new service called AppExchange OEM Edition, aimed at non-CRM service providers. Read more The Salesforce Story In Marc Benioff’s own words How did salesforce.com grow from a start up in a rented apartment into the world’s Read more Salesforce Jigsaw Salesforce.com, a prominent figure in cloud computing, has finalized a deal to acquire Jigsaw, a wiki-style business contact database, for Read more Health Cloud Brings Healthcare Transformation Following swiftly after last week’s successful launch of Financial Services Cloud, Salesforce has announced the second installment in its series Read more

September 27, 2024in AI Tools, Data, Einstein 1 Platform, Enterprise, Generative AI, Mulesoft, Salesforce, Salesforce Einstein

26Sep

AI Agent Myths

Myths About AI Agents Agents will transform how we work, but separating fact from fiction is essential. AI agents are revolutionizing business operations, yet misconceptions persist about their capabilities and value. Understanding these myths—and the truth behind them—can help your organization unlock their potential. Myth #1: AI Agents Are Just Glorified Chatbots While chatbots and AI agents both use artificial intelligence, their functionality and complexity differ significantly. For instance, a chatbot might provide an overview of your sales metrics, but an AI agent can analyze those metrics, forecast demand, adjust inventory levels, update marketing strategies, and even notify suppliers—all proactively and autonomously. This leap in capability allows agents to optimize workflows, make strategic recommendations, and dynamically respond to changing conditions. They’re not just answering questions—they’re driving outcomes. Myth #2: They’re unpredictable and uncontrollablePopular culture often paints AI as rogue systems—think 2001: A Space Odyssey or The Terminator—but in reality, modern AI agents are designed with safety, trust, and precision at their core. The most effective agents today use advanced techniques to prevent errors and ensure their actions stay within strict boundaries. At the heart of this is a reasoning engine. This engine doesn’t just execute tasks—it creates action plans based on the user’s goals, evaluates those plans, and refines them by pulling data from customer relationship management (CRM) systems and other platforms. It then determines the correct processes to execute and iterates until the task is completed successfully, improving with each interaction. When tasks fall outside an organization’s predefined guardrails—like user permissions or compliance rules—the reasoning engine automatically flags the task and escalates it for human oversight. “Helping an agent perform accurately while understanding what it is not allowed to do is a complex task,” says Krishna Gandikota, Manager of Solution Engineering at Salesforce. “The reasoning engine plans and evaluates the AI’s approach before it takes any action. It also assesses whether it has the necessary skills and information to proceed.” This process is further enhanced by continuous learning, enabling agents to refine their decision-making and actions over time. Grounded in DataThe best agents are contextually aware, leveraging relevant, up-to-date information to perform tasks accurately. Techniques like retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) help by sourcing the most relevant data, while semantic search ensures that agents retrieve the latest and most accurate information. Salesforce’s Agentforce employs these methods using Data Cloud, which enables agents to access real-time data without physically copying or modifying it—thanks to zero-copy architecture. This ensures speed, accuracy, and compliance across all agent-driven actions. Myth #3: They’re complicated, time-consuming, and expensive to set upIt’s easy to assume that deploying AI agents would require months of integration work and millions of dollars, but that’s no longer the case. Advances in generative AI and large language models (LLMs) have drastically simplified the process. Agents can now be deployed in minutes with prebuilt topics—specific areas of focus—and actions for common tasks in customer service, sales, and commerce. For more tailored needs, low-code tools make it easy to create custom agents. Using natural language processing (NLP), you simply describe what the agent needs to do, and the system builds it for you. For instance, Agent Builder automatically suggests guardrails and resources based on the task description. By scanning an app’s metadata, it identifies semantically similar processes, creating a smarter, context-aware agent that aligns with your business operations. “All the sophistication is already built into the platform,” Gandikota explains. “The Einstein Trust Layer, reasoning engine, and vector database for RAG and semantic search work seamlessly. With this foundation, you can build a team of agents quickly and confidently.” Myth #4: They’re always fully autonomousAI agents don’t need to operate completely autonomously to deliver value. Their autonomy depends on the complexity of their tasks and the industry they serve. “Agents don’t always need to take actions autonomously,” Gandikota explains. “They’re designed to understand requests, assess whether they can proceed independently, and involve humans when necessary.” Myth #5: They won’t deliver real business valueSome businesses using generic AI tools haven’t seen the ROI they expected. That’s because generic AI isn’t tailored to specific business needs. AI agents, on the other hand, are purpose-built to perform specialized tasks with precision. Whether it’s nurturing sales leads, brainstorming marketing campaigns, or resolving service tickets, targeted AI agents excel at solving specific problems. Unlike generic AI, they don’t just provide insights—they take action, driving measurable outcomes. For example, educational publisher Wiley improved support case resolution by over 40% after adopting AI agents. By handling routine tasks, the agents freed up Wiley’s service teams to focus on more complex cases. Similarly, early adopters like OpenTable and ADP have reported significant improvements in customer satisfaction and efficiency. According to MarketsandMarkets, AI agents are driving demand for automation by enhancing decision-making, scalability, and efficiency. The global market for AI agents is expected to grow from .1 billion in 2024 to billion by 2030. The Bottom LineUnderstanding the myths—and realities—of AI agents is critical for business leaders. Misconceptions can lead to missed opportunities, while clarity around their capabilities can help organizations work smarter, faster, and more efficiently. With trusted, adaptable, and purpose-built agents, the future of business automation is already here. Like Related Posts Salesforce OEM AppExchange Expanding its reach beyond CRM, Salesforce.com has launched a new service called AppExchange OEM Edition, aimed at non-CRM service providers. Read more Salesforce Jigsaw Salesforce.com, a prominent figure in cloud computing, has finalized a deal to acquire Jigsaw, a wiki-style business contact database, for Read more Health Cloud Brings Healthcare Transformation Following swiftly after last week’s successful launch of Financial Services Cloud, Salesforce has announced the second installment in its series Read more Top Ten Reasons Why Tectonic Loves the Cloud The Cloud is Good for Everyone – Why Tectonic loves the cloud You don’t need to worry about tracking licenses. Read more

September 26, 2024in Artificial Intelligence, Data

26Sep

AI Agents Connect Tool Calling and Reasoning

AI Agents: Bridging Tool Calling and Reasoning in Generative AI Exploring Problem Solving and Tool-Driven Decision Making in AI Introduction: The Emergence of Agentic AI Recent advancements in libraries and low-code platforms have simplified the creation of AI agents, often referred to as digital workers. Tool calling stands out as a key capability that enhances the “agentic” nature of Generative AI models, enabling them to move beyond mere conversational tasks. By executing tools (functions), these agents can act on your behalf and tackle intricate, multi-step problems requiring sound decision-making and interaction with diverse external data sources. This insight explores the role of reasoning in tool calling, examines the challenges associated with tool usage, discusses common evaluation methods for tool-calling proficiency, and provides examples of how various models and agents engage with tools. Reasoning as a Means of Problem-Solving Successful agents rely on two fundamental expressions of reasoning: reasoning through evaluation and planning, and reasoning through tool use. While both reasoning expressions are vital, they don’t always need to be combined to yield powerful solutions. For instance, OpenAI’s new o1 model excels in reasoning through evaluation and planning, having been trained to utilize chain of thought effectively. This has notably enhanced its ability to address complex challenges, achieving human PhD-level accuracy on benchmarks like GPQA across physics, biology, and chemistry, and ranking in the 86th-93rd percentile on Codeforces contests. However, the o1 model currently lacks explicit tool calling capabilities. Conversely, many models are specifically fine-tuned for reasoning through tool use, allowing them to generate function calls and interact with APIs effectively. These models focus on executing the right tool at the right moment but may not evaluate their results as thoroughly as the o1 model. The Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard (BFCL) serves as an excellent resource for comparing the performance of various models on tool-calling tasks and provides an evaluation suite for assessing fine-tuned models against challenging scenarios. The recently released BFCL v3 now includes multi-step, multi-turn function calling, raising the standards for tool-based reasoning tasks. Both reasoning types are powerful in their own right, and their combination holds the potential to develop agents that can effectively deconstruct complex tasks and autonomously interact with their environments. For more insights into AI agent architectures for reasoning, planning, and tool calling, check out my team’s survey paper on ArXiv. Challenges in Tool Calling: Navigating Complex Agent Behaviors Creating robust and reliable agents necessitates overcoming various challenges. In tackling complex problems, an agent often must juggle multiple tasks simultaneously, including planning, timely tool interactions, accurate formatting of tool calls, retaining outputs from prior steps, avoiding repetitive loops, and adhering to guidelines to safeguard the system against jailbreaks and prompt injections. Such demands can easily overwhelm a single agent, leading to a trend where what appears to an end user as a single agent is actually a coordinated effort of multiple agents and prompts working in unison to divide and conquer the task. This division enables tasks to be segmented and addressed concurrently by distinct models and agents, each tailored to tackle specific components of the problem. This is where models with exceptional tool-calling capabilities come into play. While tool calling is a potent method for empowering productive agents, it introduces its own set of challenges. Agents must grasp the available tools, choose the appropriate one from a potentially similar set, accurately format the inputs, execute calls in the correct sequence, and potentially integrate feedback or instructions from other agents or humans. Many models are fine-tuned specifically for tool calling, allowing them to specialize in selecting functions accurately at the right time. Key considerations when fine-tuning a model for tool calling include: Common Benchmarks for Evaluating Tool Calling As tool usage in language models becomes increasingly significant, numerous datasets have emerged to facilitate the evaluation and enhancement of model tool-calling capabilities. Two prominent benchmarks include the Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard and the Nexus Function Calling Benchmark, both utilized by Meta to assess the performance of their Llama 3.1 model series. The recent ToolACE paper illustrates how agents can generate a diverse dataset for fine-tuning and evaluating model tool use. Here’s a closer look at each benchmark: Each of these benchmarks enhances our ability to evaluate model reasoning through tool calling. They reflect a growing trend toward developing specialized models for specific tasks and extending the capabilities of LLMs to interact with the real world. Practical Applications of Tool Calling If you’re interested in observing tool calling in action, here are some examples to consider, categorized by ease of use, from simple built-in tools to utilizing fine-tuned models and agents with tool-calling capabilities. While the built-in web search feature is convenient, most applications require defining custom tools that can be integrated into your model workflows. This leads us to the next complexity level. To observe how models articulate tool calls, you can use the Databricks Playground. For example, select the Llama 3.1 405B model and grant access to sample tools like get_distance_between_locations and get_current_weather. When prompted with, “I am going on a trip from LA to New York. How far are these two cities? And what’s the weather like in New York? I want to be prepared for when I get there,” the model will decide which tools to call and what parameters to provide for an effective response. In this scenario, the model suggests two tool calls. Since the model cannot execute the tools, the user must input a sample result to simulate. Suppose you employ a model fine-tuned on the Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard dataset. When prompted, “How many times has the word ‘freedom’ appeared in the entire works of Shakespeare?” the model will successfully retrieve and return the answer, executing the required tool calls without the user needing to define any input or manage the output format. Such models handle multi-turn interactions adeptly, processing past user messages, managing context, and generating coherent, task-specific outputs. As AI agents evolve to encompass advanced reasoning and problem-solving capabilities, they will become increasingly adept at managing

September 26, 2024in Data, Generative AI

25Sep

Data Cloud and Autonomous Agents

Salesforce is building momentum with Data Cloud, the heartbeat of its platform and foundation for Agentforce, fueled by strong business demand for unified data to deliver personalized, contextually relevant, and timely customer experiences across its Customer 360 applications, Flow, analytics, and Agentforce—Salesforce’s groundbreaking suite of autonomous AI agents. This week, Salesforce unveiled a major pivot in its AI strategy during its annual Dreamforce conference. The company is introducing AI tools that can handle tasks without human supervision, alongside a new pricing model. Customers will now pay US per conversation held by Salesforce’s new AI “agents,” which are designed to manage tasks such as customer service and scheduling sales meetings autonomously. This shift in strategy reflects Salesforce’s forward-thinking approach to AI and its potential to transform not only technology but also business models. By focusing on AI agents, Salesforce is responding to a market demand for increased workforce capacity without the need for full-time hires or gig workers—a point emphasized by CEO Marc Benioff during his keynote speech. Building on its predictive Einstein platform, Agentforce represents Salesforce’s next step in AI evolution. “Think of it as the next evolution of our AI wave,” said Muralidhar Krishnaprasad, Salesforce’s president and CTO. “We had AI wave one with Einstein’s predictive capabilities, AI wave two with generative AI copilots, and now we’re entering the age of agents.” Agentforce is designed to augment work by handling tasks across platforms, leveraging Salesforce’s Data Cloud to channel structured and unstructured data into agentic experiences. These agents, powered by the Atlas reasoning engine, use dynamic plans and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) techniques to address real-time customer questions and deliver actionable insights. Salesforce’s AI agents can operate autonomously, supporting businesses by handling a range of customer interactions and tasks with minimal human intervention. Adding to the AI-driven innovations, Salesforce introduced several new Data Cloud advancements that further enhance an organization’s ability to transform customer experiences using data and AI. These include: Data Cloud continues to drive impressive growth, with a 130% YoY increase in paid customers, processing 2.3 quadrillion records in the second quarter alone. Customers like The Adecco Group, Aston Martin, and Air India rely on Data Cloud to unify their data and deliver personalized, real-time customer experiences. For example, Air India uses Data Cloud to integrate data across its loyalty, reservations, and flight systems, allowing it to manage over 550,000 service cases each month. As AI reshapes the industry, Salesforce’s pivot to autonomous agents and a conversation-based pricing model shows its commitment to leading the charge in enterprise AI adoption, with Data Cloud as its driving force. Despite some software vendors struggling to capitalize on AI advancements, Salesforce’s new model positions it to thrive in a market where AI’s impact is just beginning to unfold. Like Related Posts Salesforce OEM AppExchange Expanding its reach beyond CRM, Salesforce.com has launched a new service called AppExchange OEM Edition, aimed at non-CRM service providers. Read more The Salesforce Story In Marc Benioff’s own words How did salesforce.com grow from a start up in a rented apartment into the world’s Read more Salesforce Jigsaw Salesforce.com, a prominent figure in cloud computing, has finalized a deal to acquire Jigsaw, a wiki-style business contact database, for Read more Health Cloud Brings Healthcare Transformation Following swiftly after last week’s successful launch of Financial Services Cloud, Salesforce has announced the second installment in its series Read more

September 25, 2024in AI Tools, Data, Enterprise, Generative AI, Salesforce, Technology

24Sep

Salesforce to Acquire Zoomin

Salesforce to Acquire Zoomin: Enhancing AI Capabilities with Unstructured Data Salesforce, the world’s leading AI CRM, has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Zoomin, a top data management provider specializing in unstructured data. This acquisition is a pivotal move that will strengthen Salesforce’s Data Cloud, empowering AI agents with more personalized, context-aware capabilities. With Zoomin’s technology, Salesforce’s Agentforce platform will gain new intelligence, allowing customers to build AI that delivers real-time, data-driven responses tailored to individual needs. The acquisition is expected to close in the fourth quarter of Salesforce’s fiscal year 2025, subject to customary closing conditions. “Proprietary unstructured data is powerful fuel our customers can use for AI agents and customer experiences,” said Rahul Auradkar, EVP & GM of Unified Data Services & Einstein at Salesforce. “Zoomin’s proven expertise and technology will accelerate Data Cloud’s innovation and enable our customers to get better value from Agentforce. This transaction underscores our commitment to help customers harness the value of all their data, offering contextual AI experiences backed by enterprise-leading trust controls.” Strategic Value of the Acquisition With the integration of Zoomin’s technology, Salesforce can unlock new use cases for customers across various touchpoints. For example, Service Cloud users will be able to automate service interactions by leveraging enterprise knowledge, enhancing the efficiency of Agentforce for service representatives. This integration will lead to faster issue resolution, increased customer satisfaction, and reduced operational costs. Zoomin’s ability to consolidate unstructured data from multiple sources will empower service teams with a comprehensive understanding of their customers, turning distributed knowledge into actionable insights. Zoomin’s CEO, Gal Oron, echoed this sentiment: “We’re both humbled and excited to join forces with Salesforce. As organizations accelerate their enterprise AI transformation, our joint mission is to support them and ensure AI doesn’t hit the data wall. As part of the #1 AI CRM, we’ll enable customers to leverage their existing enterprise data in ways they never thought possible.” A Long-Standing Partnership Zoomin has been a Salesforce AppExchange partner since 2018 and became a part of the Salesforce Ventures portfolio in 2019. Through this partnership, hundreds of Salesforce customers already use Zoomin’s unified knowledge platform to deliver intuitive customer experiences. This acquisition builds on that foundation, with Zoomin set to enhance Salesforce’s AI-driven platforms by making enterprise knowledge more accessible and usable for AI agents. Despite the significance of this acquisition, Salesforce noted that it would not result in any changes to its financial guidance provided in August 2024, and no further financial details will be disclosed. This move is part of Salesforce’s broader strategy to push deeper into AI-powered customer experiences, enabling customers to utilize the full potential of their data for more intelligent, personalized interactions across all channels. Like Related Posts Salesforce OEM AppExchange Expanding its reach beyond CRM, Salesforce.com has launched a new service called AppExchange OEM Edition, aimed at non-CRM service providers. Read more The Salesforce Story In Marc Benioff’s own words How did salesforce.com grow from a start up in a rented apartment into the world’s Read more Salesforce Jigsaw Salesforce.com, a prominent figure in cloud computing, has finalized a deal to acquire Jigsaw, a wiki-style business contact database, for Read more Health Cloud Brings Healthcare Transformation Following swiftly after last week’s successful launch of Financial Services Cloud, Salesforce has announced the second installment in its series Read more

September 24, 2024in Agentforce Platform, Data, Enterprise, Salesforce, Technology, Unified Knowledge

23Sep

Agentforce – AI’s New Role in Sales and Service

From Science Fiction to Reality: AI’s Game-Changing Role in Service and Sales AI for service and sales has reached a critical tipping point, driving rapid innovation. At Dreamforce in San Francisco, hosted by Salesforce we explored how Salesforce clients are leveraging CRM, Data Cloud, and AI to extract real business value from their Salesforce investments. In previous years, AI features branded under “Einstein” had been met with skepticism. These features, such as lead scoring, next-best-action suggestions for service agents, and cross-sell/upsell recommendations, often required substantial quality data in the CRM and knowledge base to be effective. However, customer data was frequently unreliable, with duplicate records and missing information, and the Salesforce knowledge base was underused. Building self-service capabilities with chatbots was also challenging, requiring accurate predictions of customer queries and well-structured decision trees. This year’s Dreamforce revealed a transformative shift. The advancements in AI, especially for customer service and sales, have become exceptionally powerful. Companies now need to take notice of Salesforce’s capabilities, which have expanded significantly. Agentforce – AI’s New Role in Sales and Service Some standout Salesforce features include: At Dreamforce, we participated in a workshop where they built an AI agent capable of responding to customer cases using product sheets and company knowledge within 90 minutes. This experience demonstrated how accessible AI solutions have become, no longer requiring developers or LLM experts to set up. The key challenge lies in mapping external data sources to a unified data model in Data Cloud, but once achieved, the potential for customer service and sales is immense. How AI and Data Integrate to Transform Service and Sales Businesses can harness the following integrated components to build a comprehensive solution: Real-World Success and AI Implementation OpenTable shared a successful example of building an AI agent for its app in just two months, using a small team of four. This was a marked improvement from the company’s previous chatbot projects, highlighting the efficiency of the latest AI tools. Most CEOs of large enterprises are exploring AI strategies, whether by developing their own LLMs or using pre-existing models. However, many of these efforts are siloed, and engineering costs are high, leading to clunky transitions between AI and human agents. Tectonic is well-positioned to help our clients quickly deploy AI-powered solutions that integrate seamlessly with their existing CRM and ERP systems. By leveraging AI agents to streamline customer interactions, enhance sales opportunities, and provide smooth handoffs to human agents, businesses can significantly improve customer experiences and drive growth. Tectonic is ready to help businesses achieve similar success with AI-driven innovation. Like Related Posts Salesforce OEM AppExchange Expanding its reach beyond CRM, Salesforce.com has launched a new service called AppExchange OEM Edition, aimed at non-CRM service providers. Read more The Salesforce Story In Marc Benioff’s own words How did salesforce.com grow from a start up in a rented apartment into the world’s Read more Salesforce Jigsaw Salesforce.com, a prominent figure in cloud computing, has finalized a deal to acquire Jigsaw, a wiki-style business contact database, for Read more Health Cloud Brings Healthcare Transformation Following swiftly after last week’s successful launch of Financial Services Cloud, Salesforce has announced the second installment in its series Read more

September 23, 2024in Agentforce Platform, AI Tools, Data, Enterprise, Generative AI, Google, Marketing Automation, Salesforce, Salesforce Financial Services Solutions, Salesforce for Nonprofits, Salesforce Health and Life Sciences Solutions, Salesforce Hospitality Travel and Transportation, Salesforce Implementation Services, Salesforce Manufacturing Automotive Energy, Salesforce Optimization, Salesforce Public Sector Solutions, Snowflake

23Sep

Dreamforce 24 Insights

Three Key Insights You Might Have Missed from Dreamforce ’24 In today’s digital-driven world, interconnected systems are commonplace and essential, making platform integration and unified operations critical. As AI becomes more central, technologies like Salesforce Agentforce AI are drawing increased attention. At Dreamforce ’24, automation and AI were the event’s stars, particularly Salesforce’s plans for Agentforce AI. Dreamforce 24 Insights. Here are three key insights from Dreamforce ’24 that you might have missed: 1. Salesforce’s Automation Plans Could Reshape Its Future Salesforce has a solid reputation for business automation, but now, with agentic systems entering the picture, the company is looking at a transformative opportunity. John Furrier of theCUBE noted during Dreamforce, “Salesforce is positioned to use generative AI to simplify complexity and reduce the steps required to get things done.” As Salesforce integrates generative AI, the emphasis on securing and utilizing data becomes paramount. Christophe Bertrand of theCUBE pointed out that many organizations are not fully utilizing their data. The introduction of Agentforce AI, which aims to leverage this untapped potential, could bring automation to new heights and fundamentally transform how businesses operate. 2. Salesforce Agentforce AI Aims to Integrate Seamlessly Into Business Workflows A major focus of Dreamforce was Salesforce’s new AI offering—Agentforce. According to Muralidhar Krishnaprasad, Salesforce’s CTO, this represents the next stage of AI for the company. While earlier efforts focused on predictive AI (Einstein) and generative AI copilots, Agentforce moves toward more autonomous AI agents. “Our platform will be one of the most comprehensive for agent development,” Krishnaprasad explained. He highlighted that Agentforce will allow businesses to deploy AI agents across various functions—advertising, sales, service, and analytics—creating a seamless AI-driven ecosystem within the Salesforce platform. David Schmaier, president and CPO of Salesforce, added that Agentforce will transform customer interactions by integrating AI agents with Salesforce Data Cloud to deliver more personalized and efficient experiences. 3. Strategic Partnerships Are Streamlining Business and Enhancing Customer Solutions At Dreamforce, partnerships played a key role in Salesforce’s strategy for the future. A collaboration between Salesforce and AWS is streamlining procurement for joint customers through AWS Marketplace. This partnership allows companies to optimize their spend management and simplify the purchasing process for Salesforce products. IBM is also leveraging Agentforce to drive new outcomes through watsonx Orchestrate, as Nick Otto, IBM’s head of global strategic partnerships, explained. Automation and orchestration have been focal points for both IBM and Salesforce. Another partnership with Canva showcased AI-driven data autofill capabilities that integrate with Salesforce CRM. This allows sales teams to create personalized presentations at scale, automating workflows and increasing efficiency, as noted by Canva’s Chief Customer Officer, Rob Giglio. These insights from Dreamforce ’24 highlight the growing importance of AI, automation, and strategic partnerships in shaping the future of business operations with Salesforce at the forefront. Like Related Posts Salesforce OEM AppExchange Expanding its reach beyond CRM, Salesforce.com has launched a new service called AppExchange OEM Edition, aimed at non-CRM service providers. Read more The Salesforce Story In Marc Benioff’s own words How did salesforce.com grow from a start up in a rented apartment into the world’s Read more Salesforce Jigsaw Salesforce.com, a prominent figure in cloud computing, has finalized a deal to acquire Jigsaw, a wiki-style business contact database, for Read more Health Cloud Brings Healthcare Transformation Following swiftly after last week’s successful launch of Financial Services Cloud, Salesforce has announced the second installment in its series Read more

September 23, 2024in Data, Generative AI, Salesforce, Salesforce Data Cloud

22Sep

Is Agentforce Different?

The Salesforce hype machine is in full swing, with product announcements like Chatter, Einstein GPT, and Data Cloud, all positioned as revolutionary tools that promise to transform how we work. Is Agentforce Different? However, it’s often difficult to separate fact from fiction in the world of Salesforce. The cloud giant thrives on staying ahead of technological advancements, which means reinventing itself every year with new releases and updates. You could even say three times per year with the major releases. Why Enterprises Need Multiple Salesforce Orgs Over the past decade, Salesforce product launches have been hit or miss—primarily miss. Offerings like IoT Cloud, Work.com, and NFT Cloud have faded into obscurity. This contrasts sharply with Salesforce’s earlier successes, such as Service Cloud, the AppExchange, Force.com, Salesforce Lightning, and Chatter, which defined its first decade in business. One notable exception is Data Cloud. This product has seen significant success and now serves as the cornerstone of Salesforce’s future AI and data strategy. With Salesforce’s growth slowing quarter over quarter, the company must find new avenues to generate substantial revenue. Artificial Intelligence seems to be their best shot at reclaiming a leadership position in the next technological wave. Is Agentforce Different? While Salesforce has been an AI leader for over a decade, the hype surrounding last year’s Dreamforce announcements didn’t deliver the growth the company was hoping for. The Einstein Copilot Studio—comprising Copilot, Prompt Builder, and Model Builder—hasn’t fully lived up to expectations. This can be attributed to a lack of AI readiness among enterprises, the relatively basic capabilities of large language models (LLMs), and the absence of fully developed use cases. In Salesforce’s keynote, it was revealed that over 82 billion flows are launched weekly, compared to just 122,000 prompts executed. While Flow has been around for years, this stat highlights that the use of AI-powered prompts is still far from mainstream—less than one prompt per Salesforce customer per week, on average. When ChatGPT launched at the end of 2022, many predicted the dawn of a new AI era, expecting a swift and dramatic transformation of the workplace. Two years later, it’s clear that AI’s impact has yet to fully materialize, especially when it comes to influencing global productivity and GDP. However, Salesforce’s latest release feels different. While AI Agents may seem new to many, this concept has been discussed in AI circles for decades. Marc Benioff’s recent statements during Dreamforce reflect a shift in strategy, including a direct critique of Microsoft’s Copilot product, signaling the intensifying AI competition. This year’s marketing strategy around Agentforce feels like it could be the transformative shift we’ve been waiting for. While tools like Salesforce Copilot will continue to evolve, agents capable of handling service cases, answering customer questions, and booking sales meetings instantly promise immediate ROI for organizations. Is the Future of Salesforce in the Hands of Agents? Despite the excitement, many questions remain. Are Salesforce customers ready for agents? Can organizations implement this technology effectively? Is Agentforce a real breakthrough or just another overhyped concept? Agentforce may not be vaporware. Reports suggest that its development was influenced by Salesforce’s acquisition of Airkit.AI, a platform that claims to resolve 90% of customer queries. Salesforce has even set up dedicated launchpads at Dreamforce to help customers start building their own agents. Yet concerns remain, especially regarding Salesforce’s complexity, technical debt, and platform sprawl. These issues, highlighted in this year’s Salesforce developer report, cannot be overlooked. Still, it’s hard to ignore Salesforce’s strategic genius. The platform has matured to the point where it offers nearly every functionality an organization could need, though at times the components feel a bit disconnected. For instance: Salesforce is even hinting at usage-based pricing, with a potential $2 charge per conversation—an innovation that could reshape their pricing model. Will Agents Be Salesforce’s Key to Future Growth? With so many unknowns, only time will tell if agents will be the breakthrough Salesforce needs to regain the momentum of its first two decades. Regardless, agents appear to be central to the future of AI. Leading organizations like Copado are also launching their own agents, signaling that this trend will define the next phase of AI innovation. In today’s macroeconomic environment, where companies are overstretched and workforce demands are high, AI’s ability to streamline operations and improve customer service has never been more critical. Whoever cracks customer service AI first could lead the charge in the inevitable AI spending boom. We’re all waiting to see if Salesforce has truly cracked the AI code. But one thing is certain: the race to dominate AI in customer service has begun. And Salsesforce may be at the forefront. Like Related Posts Salesforce OEM AppExchange Expanding its reach beyond CRM, Salesforce.com has launched a new service called AppExchange OEM Edition, aimed at non-CRM service providers. Read more The Salesforce Story In Marc Benioff’s own words How did salesforce.com grow from a start up in a rented apartment into the world’s Read more Salesforce Jigsaw Salesforce.com, a prominent figure in cloud computing, has finalized a deal to acquire Jigsaw, a wiki-style business contact database, for Read more Health Cloud Brings Healthcare Transformation Following swiftly after last week’s successful launch of Financial Services Cloud, Salesforce has announced the second installment in its series Read more

September 22, 2024in Agentforce Platform, Artificial Intelligence, Data, Enterprise, Google, Salesforce, Snowflake, Technology

21Sep

Agentforce and Thinking AI

Agentforce is how humans with AI drive customer success together, equips organizations with autonomous agents that boost scale, efficiency, and satisfaction across service, sales, marketing, commerce, and more New Agentforce Atlas Reasoning Engine autonomously analyzes data, makes decisions, and completes tasks, providing reliable and accurate results With Agentforce, any organization can build, customize, and deploy their own agents quickly and easily, with low-code tools New Agentforce Partner Network allows customers to deploy pre-built agents and use agent actions from partners like Amazon Web Services, Google, IBM, Workday, and more Customers like OpenTable, Saks, and Wiley are turning to Agentforce because it is integrated with their apps, works across customer channels, augments their employees, and scales capacity for business needs SAN FRANCISCO — September 12, 2024 – Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), the world’s #1 AI CRM, today unveiled Agentforce, a groundbreaking suite of autonomous AI agents that augment employees and handle tasks in service, sales, marketing, and commerce, driving unprecedented efficiency and customer satisfaction. Agentforce enables companies to scale their workforces on demand with a few clicks. Agentforce’s limitless digital workforce of AI agents can analyze data, make decisions, and take action on tasks like answering customer service inquiries, qualifying sales leads, and optimizing marketing campaigns. With Agentforce, any organization can easily build, customize, and deploy their own agents for any use case across any industry. The future of AI is agents, and it’s here. Our vision is bold: to empower one billion agents with Agentforce by the end of 2025. This is what AI is meant to be.” MARC BENIOFF, CHAIR, CEO & CO-FOUNDER, SALESFORCE “Agentforce represents the Third Wave of AI—advancing beyond copilots to a new era of highly accurate, low-hallucination intelligent agents that actively drive customer success. Unlike other platforms, Agentforce is a revolutionary and trusted solution that seamlessly integrates AI across every workflow, embedding itself deeply into the heart of the customer journey. This means anticipating needs, strengthening relationships, driving growth, and taking proactive action at every touchpoint,” said Marc Benioff, Chair and CEO, Salesforce. “While others require you to DIY your AI, Agentforce offers a fully tailored, enterprise-ready platform designed for immediate impact and scalability. With advanced security features, compliance with industry standards, and unmatched flexibility. Our vision is bold: to empower one billion agents with Agentforce by the end of 2025. This is what AI is meant to be.” In contrast to now-outdated copilots and chatbots that rely on human requests and struggle with complex or multi-step tasks, Agentforce offers a new level of sophistication by operating autonomously, retrieving the right data on demand, building action plans for any task, and executing these plans without requiring human intervention. Like a self-driving car, Agentforce uses real-time data to adapt to changing conditions and operates independently within an organizations’ customized guardrails, ensuring every customer interaction is informed, relevant, and valuable. And when desired, Agentforce seamlessly hands off to human employees with a summary of the interaction, an overview of the customer’s details, and recommendations for what to do next. Industry leaders like OpenTable, Saks, and Wiley are already experiencing the transformative power of Agentforce. For example, Agentforce is helping organizations like Wiley provide customers with dynamic, conversational self-service. Agentforce is configured to answer questions using Wiley’s knowledge base already built into Salesforce so it can automatically resolve account access. It also triages registration and payment issues, directing customers to the appropriate resources. With Agentforce handling routine inquiries, Wiley has seen an over 40% increase in case resolution, outperforming their old chatbot and giving their human agents more time to focus on complex cases. Why it Matters An estimated 41% of employee time is spent on repetitive, low-impact work, and 65% of desk workers believe generative AI will allow them to be more strategic, according to the Salesforce Trends in AI Report. Every company has more jobs to be done than the resources available to do them. As a result, many jobs go unaddressed or uncompleted. Agentforce provides relief to overstretched teams with its ability to scale capacity on demand so humans can focus on higher-touch, higher-value, and more strategic outcomes. The future of work is a hybrid workforce composed of humans with agents, enabling companies to compete in an ever-changing world. Supporting Customer Quotes “Piloting Agentforce has made a noticeable difference during one of our busiest periods — back-to-school season. It’s been exciting to go live with our first agent thanks to the no-code builder, and we’ve seen a more than 40% increase in case resolution, outperforming our old bot. Agentforce helps to manage routine responsibilities and free up our service teams for more complex cases.” – Kevin Quigley, Senior Manager, Continuous Improvement, Wiley “Every interaction that restaurants and diners have with our support team must be accurate, fast, and reflective of the hospitality that restaurants show their guests. Agentforce has incredible potential to help us deliver that high touch attentiveness and support while significantly freeing up our team to address more complex needs.” – George Pokorny, SVP Customer Success, OpenTable “As we advance our personalization strategy, we believe Agentforce and its AI-powered capabilities have the potential to make a real impact on our approach to customer engagement, raising the bar in luxury retail. Agentforce will improve our effectiveness across customer touchpoints, empowering our employees and augmenting their ability to deliver the elevated and more individualized shopping experiences for which Saks is known.” – Mike Hite, Chief Technology Officer, Saks Global Like1 Related Posts Salesforce OEM AppExchange Expanding its reach beyond CRM, Salesforce.com has launched a new service called AppExchange OEM Edition, aimed at non-CRM service providers. Read more The Salesforce Story In Marc Benioff’s own words How did salesforce.com grow from a start up in a rented apartment into the world’s Read more Salesforce Jigsaw Salesforce.com, a prominent figure in cloud computing, has finalized a deal to acquire Jigsaw, a wiki-style business contact database, for Read more Health Cloud Brings Healthcare Transformation Following swiftly after last week’s successful launch of Financial Services Cloud, Salesforce has announced

September 21, 2024in Data, Enterprise, Generative AI, Google, Salesforce, Technology

21Sep

Large Action Models and AI Agents

The introduction of LAMs marks a significant advancement in AI, focusing on actionable intelligence. By enabling robust, dynamic interactions through function calling and structured output generation, LAMs are set to redefine the capabilities of AI agents across industries.

September 21, 2024in Data, Enterprise, Salesforce

20Sep

Thoughts on Workday With Illuminate

Workday Expands AI Across HR and Finance Platforms with ‘Illuminate’ Workday is significantly enhancing its AI capabilities within its HR and finance platforms through a new set of updates called Illuminate. These updates aim to improve automation and increase productivity by embedding AI more broadly across various HR processes. From routine tasks like content generation to complex problem-solving, Workday’s AI now identifies inefficiencies in HR workflows and offers recommendations for improvement. Thoughts on Workday With Illuminate follow. A key feature of Illuminate is a series of AI agents designed to assist in areas such as succession planning. These agents can suggest internal candidates that HR teams might overlook, helping organizations identify potential leaders within their workforce. During a press briefing ahead of the Workday Rising conference, TechTarget asked if the AI agent used in succession planning could fully capture the intricacies of the employee experience and assess leadership potential. David Somers, Chief Product Officer at Workday, acknowledged the sensitivity of succession planning but emphasized that AI is used to augment—not replace—human decision-making. The agents provide recommendations, while the final hiring decisions still involve talent acquisition professionals and interview panels. Workday’s updates include tools for a wide range of tasks, from content summarization to more advanced capabilities such as detecting bottlenecks in onboarding processes and suggesting optimizations. “These AI agents will streamline common business workflows, boosting productivity and freeing up users to focus on strategic, meaningful work,” Somers explained. While AI has long been part of Workday’s offerings, generative AI is now driving rapid transformation in HR practices. Workday’s Illuminate platform combines data with contextual insights, offering features like compensation data tailored to a company’s specific information. Users can access these AI capabilities through Workday Assistant, a generative AI chatbot that integrates with Microsoft Teams and Slack. This tool will be generally available early next year, making it easier for teams to interact with Workday’s AI-powered systems. HR industry expert Josh Bersin sees Workday’s Illuminate as part of a broader trend of AI agents in the HR space, similar to SAP’s Joule. He believes Workday’s new AI agents will be a major focus for the company, though building out all the necessary Workday transactions into these tools will take time. Bersin does not foresee trust issues among Workday users regarding Illuminate, noting that the platform isn’t open to non-Workday data, which limits concerns around data security. Bersin’s own AI assistant, Galileo, is also expected to integrate with Workday’s platform in the future, further enhancing its capabilities. rativAccording to recent Gartner surveys from March and June, the majority of HR leaders are adopting AI in their organizations. Only 15% of respondents indicated they had no plans to incorporate generative AI into their HR processes, signaling widespread acceptance of AI tools like those Workday is rolling out with Illuminate. Like Related Posts Salesforce OEM AppExchange Expanding its reach beyond CRM, Salesforce.com has launched a new service called AppExchange OEM Edition, aimed at non-CRM service providers. Read more Salesforce Jigsaw Salesforce.com, a prominent figure in cloud computing, has finalized a deal to acquire Jigsaw, a wiki-style business contact database, for Read more Health Cloud Brings Healthcare Transformation Following swiftly after last week’s successful launch of Financial Services Cloud, Salesforce has announced the second installment in its series Read more Top Ten Reasons Why Tectonic Loves the Cloud The Cloud is Good for Everyone – Why Tectonic loves the cloud You don’t need to worry about tracking licenses. Read more

September 20, 2024in AI Tools, Data, Generative AI

19Sep

Salesforce AI Agents and New Data Cloud Features

Salesforce has announced several major updates to its Data Cloud at the annual Dreamforce conference, aimed at enhancing data analysis and boosting the capabilities of its new AI agents, Agentforce. These updates include support for unstructured data in audio and video formats, 50 new data connectors, and a low-latency pipeline to ensure faster AI responses. Salesforce describes Data Cloud as a customer data platform designed to unify data from various sources, providing actionable insights for sales, service, and marketing teams. The latest features will further improve this functionality, according to Rahul Auradkar, Salesforce’s General Manager of Unified Data Services and Einstein. Key Updates 1. Unstructured Data Support: Audio and Video Formats Salesforce has introduced the ability to process unstructured audio and video data. This allows enterprises to analyze information from sources like customer calls, training sessions, product demos, and webinars. The unstructured data can enrich customer profiles, provide deeper insights into behavior, and enhance the performance of AI agents within Agentforce by improving response accuracy. IDC’s Hayley Sutherland highlighted that vectorization of this content enables retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), enhancing the use of large language models (LLMs) to generate more effective and context-aware responses. 2. 50 New Data Connectors Salesforce has expanded its connector library with 50 new options, raising the total to 200. This helps businesses integrate diverse data sources, facilitating improved personalization and decision-making. These connectors are also critical for feeding data to AI agents, enabling them to generate more accurate insights. 3. Sub-second Data Layer for Real-time Responses A new sub-second data layer has been rolled out, allowing enterprises to ingest, unify, analyze, and act on data in real time. This layer powers Einstein Personalization, enabling instant AI-driven recommendations and analytics. It’s especially important for the low-latency needs of Agentforce’s autonomous AI agents, ensuring faster, more accurate customer interactions. 4. Governance and Security Enhancements Salesforce has introduced AI tagging and classification features for unstructured data, automating labeling and organization to ensure secure access. Policy-based governance will offer granular control over data access based on tags, metadata, and user attributes. Additionally, customer-managed encryption keys ensure data security, while the newly available private connect feature allows secure data sharing between Data Cloud and public cloud environments. 5. Data Cloud One and Hybrid Search Data Cloud One, a new feature, will allow enterprises to connect multiple Salesforce accounts across different departments or regions into a single instance, simplifying data management. The hybrid search feature, which combines vector and keyword search, is designed to improve the speed and accuracy of finding industry-specific information. Other updates include Tableau Semantics, which helps organize data based on its meaning, and a new data community platform to foster collaboration among data professionals. These updates reflect Salesforce’s commitment to enhancing data-driven decision-making and delivering powerful AI capabilities for enterprises. Like1 Related Posts Salesforce OEM AppExchange Expanding its reach beyond CRM, Salesforce.com has launched a new service called AppExchange OEM Edition, aimed at non-CRM service providers. Read more The Salesforce Story In Marc Benioff’s own words How did salesforce.com grow from a start up in a rented apartment into the world’s Read more Salesforce Jigsaw Salesforce.com, a prominent figure in cloud computing, has finalized a deal to acquire Jigsaw, a wiki-style business contact database, for Read more Health Cloud Brings Healthcare Transformation Following swiftly after last week’s successful launch of Financial Services Cloud, Salesforce has announced the second installment in its series Read more

September 19, 2024in Data, Enterprise, Salesforce

19Sep

Salesforce and OpenAI Advances in AI

With investor enthusiasm for AI beginning to fade, Salesforce is shifting focus to its next AI wave, “Agentforce,” which will be showcased at the Dreamforce customer conference. This announcement comes at a time when Salesforce stock has underperformed, with revenue growth slowing and expectations building that AI-related revenue may not materialize until 2025. Salesforce and OpenAI Advances in AI. The Agentforce platform will be featured at Dreamforce, running from Sept. 17 to Sept. 19, and aims to automate routine business tasks while offering real-time insights and guidance. CEO Marc Benioff noted in a Sept. 12 briefing that Agentforce represents the third wave of AI, moving beyond conversational chatbots to more autonomous agents. Early adopters of the platform include Walt Disney, Kaiser Permanente, Fossil, Wiley, and OpenTable. Meanwhile, Salesforce faces stiff competition. Microsoft is hosting its own AI event, Microsoft 365 Copilot Wave 2, which focuses on business productivity features powered by generative AI. Like Salesforce, Microsoft’s AI tools have yet to demonstrate significant revenue impact, as customers are still testing the technologies. Salesforce is pushing Agentforce as an evolution of its previous Einstein copilot, which integrates conversational AI within its apps. Agentforce aims to take this further by reducing human oversight and improving efficiency in sales, marketing, and customer service roles. The product is scheduled for an October rollout, with a pricing model based on usage—potentially $2 per interaction for complex queries. Analysts have mixed opinions on Agentforce’s potential. Truist Securities sees the AI platform driving future subscription growth, while Barclays believes it could gain more traction than previous AI tools due to its fully autonomous nature. However, others, like Monness Crespi Hardt & Co., remain cautious, noting concerns about Salesforce’s slowing revenue growth in a challenging macroeconomic environment. Salesforce Agentforce PlatformIn its second-quarter earnings call, Salesforce shared promising results from an Agentforce trial, where the platform resolved 90% of patient inquiries for a large healthcare customer. Analysts like Morgan Stanley’s Keith Weiss see Agentforce as a key differentiator for Salesforce, enabling customers to leverage AI at scale with reduced complexity and cost. Despite this optimism, Salesforce still faces challenges. Competitors such as Meta’s AI Studio and ServiceNow are also advancing AI agent technologies. ServiceNow, for instance, emphasizes the need for strict human oversight of AI actions, a sentiment echoed by Salesforce’s chief ethical and humane use officer, Paula Goldman. As the tech industry races to enhance AI autonomy, concerns about the technology’s limitations—such as bias, hallucinations, and decision-making risks—remain central. Experts warn that while AI agents hold great potential, they must be carefully regulated to prevent unintended consequences. Like Related Posts Salesforce OEM AppExchange Expanding its reach beyond CRM, Salesforce.com has launched a new service called AppExchange OEM Edition, aimed at non-CRM service providers. Read more The Salesforce Story In Marc Benioff’s own words How did salesforce.com grow from a start up in a rented apartment into the world’s Read more Salesforce Jigsaw Salesforce.com, a prominent figure in cloud computing, has finalized a deal to acquire Jigsaw, a wiki-style business contact database, for Read more Health Cloud Brings Healthcare Transformation Following swiftly after last week’s successful launch of Financial Services Cloud, Salesforce has announced the second installment in its series Read more

September 19, 2024in Agentforce Platform, Generative AI

19Sep

Salesforce Free AI Training

Salesforce Expands Access to Free AI Training to Address Global Skills Gap SAN FRANCISCO — September 18, 2024 – Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), the #1 AI-powered CRM, has announced a significant expansion of its AI skilling initiatives. Starting today, Salesforce will offer its premium AI courses and certifications free of charge to anyone via its online learning platform, Trailhead, through the end of 2025. This initiative aims to help bridge the growing AI skills gap by providing accessible education for individuals across industries. To further support these efforts, Salesforce will open new physical training spaces at its San Francisco headquarters, including a pop-up AI Center offering in-person community courses and a dedicated AI skilling floor for employees. This investment, valued at over $50 million, is designed to empower the workforce with essential AI skills as the demand for AI talent surges globally. Research from Slack highlights a growing urgency among executives to integrate AI into business operations, with interest increasing sevenfold in the last six months. However, more than two-thirds of workers have yet to engage with AI tools, and only 15% feel they possess the necessary training to use them effectively. “The advent of AI and agents represents the biggest technological shift of our generation and will radically change how people work,” said Brian Millham, President and Chief Operating Officer at Salesforce. “We need to ensure everyone has the skills to succeed in this new AI-driven world.” Expanding AI Training Opportunities Salesforce has already helped thousands of professionals acquire technical skills through premium, instructor-led training and certifications. With these new offerings, the company aims to reach an additional 100,000 learners, empowering every Trailblazer to become an “Agentblazer” in this evolving AI landscape. You don’t need to spend thousands of dollars in AI education for yourself or your workforce. Salesforce has it at your fingertips for free. Trailhead now offers a wide range of AI-specific courses, covering topics like AI fundamentals, ethical AI use, and prompt engineering. Since June 2023, learners have earned over 2.6 million AI and data badges, helping unlock critical skills for the future of work. Creating Spaces for Hands-on AI Learning In addition to expanding its online offerings, Salesforce is building AI training spaces around the globe. After launching its first AI Center in London, the company will open a pop-up AI Center at its San Francisco headquarters in 2025, with plans for additional locations in Chicago, Tokyo, and Sydney. These centers will host in-person Trailhead courses and bring together experts, partners, and customers to advance AI innovation. Introducing Agentforce — A Groundbreaking AI Suite As part of its ongoing AI revolution, Salesforce is also upskilling its 72,000-strong workforce through quarterly AI learning days and immersive experiences at the newly created AI Knowledge Center in San Francisco. The centerpiece of this initiative is Agentforce, an innovative suite of AI agents designed to enhance productivity in service, sales, marketing, and commerce. By automating repetitive tasks, these agents allow employees to focus on higher-value work. Since the launch of Slack AI in February, Salesforce employees have saved nearly 3 million work hours through AI-driven tools that summarize information, find answers, and generate new ideas. Nearly 40% of the AI and data badges earned on Trailhead belong to Salesforce employees, demonstrating the company’s commitment to internal skilling and innovation. “AI will transform the workforce, creating new roles and opportunities. It’s our responsibility as employers to provide training that prepares workers for the future,” said Nathalie Scardino, President and Chief People Officer at Salesforce. “Grounded in our values, we’re leveraging Salesforce’s full power to help everyone succeed in this AI-driven era.” Related Resources For more information about Salesforce, visit www.salesforce.com or call 1-800-NO-SOFTWARE. About SalesforceSalesforce is the world’s leading AI-powered CRM, helping organizations of all sizes reimagine their business for the AI age. Powered by its trusted platform, Agentforce, Salesforce brings humans and AI agents together to drive customer success through data-driven insights and actions. Salesforce is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices globally, and trades on the NYSE under the ticker symbol “CRM.” Like Related Posts Salesforce OEM AppExchange Expanding its reach beyond CRM, Salesforce.com has launched a new service called AppExchange OEM Edition, aimed at non-CRM service providers. Read more The Salesforce Story In Marc Benioff’s own words How did salesforce.com grow from a start up in a rented apartment into the world’s Read more Salesforce Jigsaw Salesforce.com, a prominent figure in cloud computing, has finalized a deal to acquire Jigsaw, a wiki-style business contact database, for Read more Health Cloud Brings Healthcare Transformation Following swiftly after last week’s successful launch of Financial Services Cloud, Salesforce has announced the second installment in its series Read more

September 19, 2024in AI Tools, Data

18Sep

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: 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: 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. Like Related Posts Salesforce OEM AppExchange Expanding its reach beyond CRM, Salesforce.com has launched a new service called AppExchange OEM Edition, aimed at non-CRM service providers. Read more The Salesforce Story In Marc Benioff’s own words How did salesforce.com grow from a start up in a rented apartment into the world’s Read more Salesforce Jigsaw Salesforce.com, a prominent figure in cloud computing, has finalized a deal to acquire Jigsaw, a wiki-style business contact database, for Read more Health Cloud Brings Healthcare Transformation Following swiftly after last week’s successful launch of Financial Services Cloud, Salesforce has announced the second installment in its series Read more

September 18, 2024in Agentforce Platform, Generative AI, Mulesoft

AI Agents

AI Agent Myths

AI Agents Connect Tool Calling and Reasoning

Agentforce and Thinking AI

Large Action Models and AI Agents

Thoughts on Workday With Illuminate

Salesforce and OpenAI Advances in AI

Salesforce Free AI Training

Recent Posts

Salesforce Foundations

Agentforce for Retail

Benefits of Linking CloudSign with Salesforce

Agentforce: Your Partner in Seamless Customer Experiences

On Premise Gen AI

Contact Us

Be in touch today — and start your business on a path to success.

Category

Archives

AI Agents

Recent Posts

Contact Us

Be in touch today — and start your business on a path to success.

Category

Tags

Archives

Subscribe to our mailing list. Join our mail list to receive our newsletter