Salesforce Unveils Agentforce

Ahead of its massive Dreamforce conference in San Francisco next week, Salesforce yesterday afternoon unveiled Agentforce, a suite of autonomous artificial intelligence agents for service, sales, marketing, and commerce.

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.

"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, chairman and CEO of 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 1 billion agents with Agentforce by the end of 2025. This is what AI is meant to be."

Benioff said further that Salesforce in its 25-year history "has never worked on anything more exciting," noting that Agentforce "can have a dramatic impact for all our customers."

Agentforce operates autonomously, retrieving data on demand, building action plans for any task, and executing these plans without human intervention. It uses real-time data to adapt to changing conditions and operates within organizations' customized guardrails. 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.

Benioff said the key to delivering highly effective AI is a platform approach where everything works together. "And only Salesforce delivers this platform approach," he said.

Agentforce includes several out-of-the-box autonomous agents; low-code tools for building, customizing, and deploying agents, and the Agentforce Partner Network to deploy third-party agents or use third-party actions when using Agentforce's low-code tools to build custom agents.

The Salesforce Platform, with Data Cloud at its center, enables Agentforce and every Salesforce app to deliver seamless, AI-powered experiences across every touchpoint.

The new Atlas Reasoning Engine is the brain behind Agentforce. It starts by evaluating user queries, refining them for clarity and relevance. Next, it retrieves the most relevant data and builds a plan for execution.

Agentforce seamlessly integrates with other Salesforce products, including MuleSoft. With Salesforce Flow, MuleSoft, and Apex methods, customers can extend the functionality of Agentforce by tapping into other workflows and actions. They can also use these familiar building blocks to create new automations for Agentforce.

Out-of-the-Box Agents can be set up in minutes, are scalable, and work around the clock across any channel. They include the following:

• Service Agent, which replaces traditional chatbots with AI that can handle a wide range of service issues without preprogrammed scenarios.
• Sales Development Representative (SDR), which engages with prospects 24/7, answering questions, managing objections, and scheduling meetings based on CRM and external data.
• Sales Coach, which provides personalized role-play sessions for sales teams, using Salesforce data and generative AI to help sellers practice pitches and objections tailored to specific deals.
• Merchant, which assists e-commerce merchandisers with site setup, goal setting, personalized promotions, product descriptions, and data-driven insights.
• Buyer, which helps buyers find products, make purchases, and track orders via chat or within sales portals.
• Personal Shopper, which acts as a digital concierge on e-commerce sites or messaging apps, offering personalized product recommendations and assisting with search queries.
• Campaign Optimizer, which automates the full campaign lifecycle, using AI to analyze, generate, personalize, and optimize marketing campaigns based on business goals.

Other elements of Agentforce include the following:

• Agent Builder, a low-code builder to customize out-of-the-box agents or build new agents for any role, any industry, or any use case with tools like Flows, Prompts, Apex, and MuleSoft APIs to configure their agents. Using Agent Builder, organizations can create jobs for their agents by defining topics, writing natural language instructions within topics, and creating a library of actions. Users can also observe agents' plans of action and test their responses in Agent Builder.
• Model Builder, a low-code builder and control plane for registering, testing, and activating custom AI models and large language models across Salesforce. Customers can use Model Builder to bring the API keys of LLMs, test them in a playground, and activate them for use in Prompt Builder.
• Prompt Builder, which allows users to customize out-of-the-box prompt templates with their own CRM or Data Cloud data to enhance the output of the generated results. It embeds the generative experience in the flow of work, whether it's within an automated workflow, Lightning record page, or even within actions of an agent.

The Agentforce Partner Network includes Amazon Web Services, Box, Certinia, Copado, Coupa, Google, Honeywell, IBM, Workday, Zoom, and more. These partners have built more than 20 agents and agent actions that will be available through the Salesforce AppExchange. Customers can leverage these specialized actions in Agent Builder to customize the out-of-the-box agents, build new agents with unique skills, and deploy partner-built agents.

For example, IBM plans to provide customers with an outbound sales development agent enabling customers to find new leads by orchestrating insights across various applications and custom data sources. Workday's agents will allow customers to deliver user-friendly, powerful employee services. Customers will also be able to use partner agent actions, like Google Workspace actions, to create Google Docs or Slides presentations or Box actions to intelligently surface the right content for an account, lead, or opportunity.

"Salesforce's new Agentforce stands out as a promising suite of tools, offering businesses a comprehensive platform of intelligent agents designed to automate and streamline tasks across a wide range of industries. It is crucial for companies, at any point on their AI implementation journeys, to comprehend the advanced abilities of these modern agents, which can perform a wide range of tasks beyond those of standard chatbots or even copilots. The latest agents integrated into Salesforce's Agentforce suite are capable of not just conversing but also taking action. Implementing these solutions can boost efficiency and ensure the longevity of organizations in a competitive environment," said Ritu Jyoti, group vice president and general manager of AI and data market research and advisory at IDC, in a statement.

OpenTable, Saks, and Wiley were among the companies piloting Agentforce to provide customers with dynamic, conversational self-service.

"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 percent increase in case resolution, outperforming our old bot. Agentforce helps to manage routine responsibilities and free up our service teams for more complex cases," said Kevin Quigley, senior manager of continuous improvement at 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," said George Pokorny, senior vice president of customer success at 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," said Mike Hite, chief technology officer of Saks Global.

Agentforce for Service and Sales will be available Oct. 25.