From Salesforce’s Agentforce expansion to Zendesk’s collaboration with AWS to accelerate contact center adoption of AI, here are extracts from some of this week’s most popular news stories.
Salesforce’s Biggest Platform Expansion in 18 Years Lets Anyone Build and Sell AI-Powered Business Applications
For decades, the path from industry expertise to software business required substantial capital, large engineering teams, and months of infrastructure development.
A rancher who understood supply chain traceability or a healthcare administrator who knew patient engagement inside out faced an impossible gap between knowledge and commercialization.
That barrier is crumbling. At the Dreamforce event back in October, Salesforce launched Agentforce 360, and today they announced a major refresh to their partner ecosystem, marking the largest expansion of its platform since Force.com debuted eighteen years ago.
The move transforms how domain experts can turn their insights into revenue-generating AI applications without… (Read more).
AWS and Zendesk Unite to Modernize Outdated Contact Center Stacks
AWS used this year’s re:Invent event to unveil a new Strategic Collaboration Agreement (SCA) with Zendesk, signaling a tighter alignment aimed at accelerating the development and adoption of AI-powered contact center technologies.
Under the agreement, Zendesk will integrate Amazon Connect voice capabilities, along with conversational and sentiment analytics, directly into its contact center platform.
The move supports Zendesk’s ambition to bring voice, digital, and AI automation together within a single environment.
Adrian McDermott, CTO at Zendesk, positioned the collaboration as a response to growing operational strain across service teams, stating:
“Our collaboration with AWS addresses a critical industry challenge: contact centers are drowning in fragmented systems that create friction instead of resolution.”
He added that the companies aim to build “the next generation of agent-centric solutions, where AI is seamlessly integrated — not bolted on — ensuring every interaction across channels, agents, and systems drives resolution.”
The announcement follows rising pressure on enterprises to modernize customer service infrastructure… (Read more).
Coupang CEO Resigns as Regulators Tighten Oversight Following Data Breach
The CEO of South Korean e-commerce giant Coupang has resigned amid an escalating backlash over a massive data leak that exposed the personal information of around 33.7 million customers.
Coupang has appointed Harold Rogers, Chief Administrative Officer of its U.S.-based parent company, as interim CEO, the company said in the December 10 announcement.
Park’s departure on December 10 comes less than two weeks after the retailer, known as the Amazon of South Korea, confirmed that customer names, email addresses, phone numbers, shipping addresses and parts of their order histories were leaked in an incident believed to have started in June. Payment information and login credentials were not involved, according to the company.
Park was quoted in the statement:
“I am deeply sorry for disappointing the public with the recent personal information incident. I feel a deep sense of responsibility for the outbreak and the subsequent recovery process, and I have decided to step down from all positions.”
Rogers is tasked with rebuilding customer confidence and coordinating the U.S. parent company’s role in the crisis response. Rogers has been appointed “to proactively address the situation and alleviate customer concerns,” the company stated… (Read more).
IBM Acquires Confluent at $11BN to Boost Real-Time Data Accessibility
IBM is set to acquire Confluent for $11BN to enhance the generative and agentic deployment of AI agents.
The two companies confirmed the acquisition earlier this week, designed to improve data and communication transfers between ecosystems, providing enterprises with connected and trustworthy data.
This acquisition aims to enhance IBM’s current data capabilities, improving the way it approaches customer interaction management.
IBM announced that the purpose of the acquisition will allow it to create a smart data platform for enterprise AI, supporting real-time data flow across hybrid environments as well as IBM’s existing products and data services.
The technology company further claims that demand for a platform like this will be high in the next few years, with IDC estimating that by 2028, more than one billion new logical applications will arrive.
This statistic highlights a future demand for platforms that can provide enterprises… (Read more).
