Salesforce has announced that its Agentforce platform is now generally available.
The platform allows businesses to deploy, test and deploy autonomous AI agents that augment their existing Salesforce workflows.
Additionally, with a low-code/no-code agent builder, brands can create custom AI agents to perform unique tasks and connect functions across the Salesforce ecosystem.
Leader CRM makes that process look simple. “If you can describe the job, Agentforce can build the Agent for it,” he noted in a launch video.
Agentforce does this by taking a natural language description of the task, isolating the relevant resources within the Customer 360 business environment, and – with that business sense – developing an AI agent prototype.
The AI agent then automatically suggests insights, actions and handrails that will enable it to perform more effectively, allowing the CX team to optimize its performance.
During September’s Dreamforce 2024 event, Salesforce customers built 10,685 AI agents, serving a variety of industries and use cases.
By putting the platform in their hands, the CRM leader bridged the gap between the excitement of AI advancements and the practical, risk-aware application of these tools.
Additionally, it can show a significant shift from generation-based AI to action-based AI.
According to Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforcewhile previous iterations of generative agents may have proven useful, those that do are transformative.
“Agentforce is redefining what’s possible in business and beyond, ushering in a new era of AI abundance and a limitless workforce that augments every employee, builds deeper customer relationships, and drives unprecedented growth and profitability ,” he said.
Built on Salesforce’s trusted, fully customizable platform—seamlessly integrating enterprise data, metadata, AI models, workflows, security, and applications—Agentforce is what AI was meant to be.
Upon its release, Agentforce has many ready-to-bake AI agents available, including over 100 sector-specific examples.
However, the most used are likely to be industry agnostic and oriented towards service and sales teams.
For example, its AI service agent is likely to be popular. It solves incoming support cases by responding intuitively and conversationally.
Meanwhile, the AI Sales Development Agent stands out. He proactively engages with executives, answers their questions, and schedules meetings.
As a final example, consider the AI sales trainer agent. Trained on internal best practices, this can merge calls with new sales reps, provide real-time advice and handle objections.
However, while these use cases within individual CRM applications can drive value, businesses using the broad Salesforce platform can benefit most from Agentforce.
Indeed, the complete Salesforce platform includes Data Cloud, which helps to supercharge AI agents. It also connects Salesforce apps, enabling AI agents to work collaboratively across functions.
Making this point during a recent episode of CX Today’s Big News Update, Zeus Kerravala, Principal Analyst at ZK Researchsaid: “Salesforce has been offering AI capabilities for a while, with varying degrees of success through Einstein, but this felt more like assembling individual AI tools than a cohesive strategy. Now, with Agentforce, they’ve taken a more comprehensive, turnkey approach.
The platform covers everything from role definition to data integration, actions, guardrails and channels – essentially all the components needed for effective AI deployment. It reflects the maturity of the industry and feels like a great move.
Interestingly, Salesforce has also rewritten all of its Customer 360 applications within the platform, ensuring that they are all built on a unified foundation.
This unified foundation ensures that Agentforce can work seamlessly across the entire CX ecosystem without the need for extensive consulting or custom solutions.
However, to take full advantage of Agentforce, brands will likely need to do a lot of integration work, channeling disparate data sources into the Data Cloud.
Those who have already achieved this—including Agentforce early adopters such as Adecco Group, BACA Systems, OpenTable, Saks and Wiley—will reap the greatest rewards.
Get a free trial of the Agentforce Service Agent in Salesforce Foundations
Organizations can try an Agentforce AI Agent with Salesforce Foundations for free, an additional $0 for Enterprise Edition customers and above.
Announced in September, Salesforce Foundations is a free upgrade that makes available to Sales and Service Cloud customers capabilities from the broader Salesforce ecosystem.
Now, Foundations customers will receive credit for their first 1,000 customer conversations with Agentforce Service Agent so they can try before they buy.
From there, pricing for the AI Agent will start at $2 per conversation, with volume discounts.
In addition, Salesforce highlighted several other resources for potential Agentforce customers.
These include its new Agentblazer community, where CX leaders can connect with product experts, learn more about the platform and share ideas for AI agents.
In addition, Salesforce offers an Agentforce Partner Network to enable third-party actions when using the platform for highly personalized and interoperable AI agents.
Finally, there’s Agents for Impact, a Salesforce Accelerator initiative to support nonprofits in building and adapting AI agents. With this, the CRM giant scales the influence of the AI community.
