Salesforce has made significant strides in customer service with its agentic AI platform: Agentforce.
Indeed, the CRM leader is currently resolving 85 percent of customer queries without human intervention.
This success was attributed to three particular aspects of Agentforce.
The first was the platform’s ability to evolve with every customer interaction, and the second was its “seamless” integration within the Salesforce ecosystem.
Yet, perhaps most importantly, Data Cloud was third.
The customer data platform (CDP) takes data – including metadata – from the Salesforce ecosystem and pulls insight from external data lakes and warehouses.
In doing so, it connects systems and enables AI agents to perform tasks across the enterprise.
Speaking at the Agentforce World Tour, Parker Harris, co-Founder & Chief Technology Officer at Salesforce, highlighted how this technology plays a “central role” in helping Salesforce handle large volumes of customer interactions.
The remaining 15 percent of queries escalate to a human agent due to their complexity. There, the human provides a “higher value interaction to really help customers,” according to Harris.
He explained, “We’re all shocked by the power of these LLMs, and the power of AI has really hit that tipping point in the past two years.”
Additionally, Agentforce now manages over 30,000 weekly conversations for Salesforce.
Yet, despite growing optimism and real-world use cases for the platform, the decision to implement Agentforce was not without hesitation.
From Exercising Caution to Full Throttle – Agentforce Gains Momentum
Initially, Salesforce was cautious about rolling Agentforce out on its website, with concerns about potential hallucinations and glitches.
However, the tool was launched with the directive to learn and improve through real-world use.
Expanding on this, Harris addressed the audience: “So, we went for it! We put it out there, and we made it better each hour.
Every time there’s an interaction, we know what’s going on, we know if there’s a problem, and if the customer didn’t have the right answer, we can solve it.
Over time, Agentforce has grown more effective, now meeting the aforementioned 30,000 weekly conversations.
Salesforce Implements Agentforce Beyond Customer Support
Beyond customer support, Agentforce is also transforming sales operations within Salesforce.
The platform serves as a virtual coach for 25,000 sales representatives, providing real-time guidance without the social barriers of a human supervisor.
“The best thing about the platform is the salespeople aren’t embarrassed to ask questions of that sales coach because it’s not a human,” added Harris.
This approach has “enhanced efficiency” and “comfort” for sales staff, allowing them to perform better.
The Impact of These Stories
Alongside its own success story, Salesforce shared many more from Agentforce customers.
For instance, Harris also showcased how reMarkable managed to automate a significant chunk of its contact volumes (35 percent).
That means it’s handling 7,350 fewer queries each month, freeing human agents for more complex work.
Yet, in drinking its own Kool-Aid, Salesforce can exemplify just how potent its platform can be – in a way that some rivals don’t.
Indeed, Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, noted this at the launch of Agentforce 2.0. Then, the CEO stated:
“So many companies have repeated our words, saying they also believe in this and are trying to do it. But when you visit their websites — because I think a website is a pretty good way to see how real something is — it seems to me that there aren’t as many companies doing this as there are saying they are.
“You find a lot of forms. You find a lot of FAQs. But you don’t find a lot of agents.”
Benioff also veered specifically for Microsoft, stating: “When you go to Microsoft’s website and look for Co-Pilot, or how they’re automating their support, or how they’ve used this technology over the last two years—you can’t find it. It’s exactly the same as it was two years ago.”
Nevertheless, Microsoft has fought back against Benioff’s criticism, with a war of words ensuing.
Other Salesforce News
Earlier this month, Salesforce touted a big ITSM move amid ServiceNow’s CRM push.
During a recent appearance on the Motley Fool podcast, Benioff stirred the pot once again, revealing how Salesforce is “building new apps, like ITSM.”
The comment followed his earlier teaser during an earnings call: “At our TrailheadDX event… You might get a glimpse of the new ITSM product that’s coming if you look hard.”
While that product flew under the radar at the event, Salesforce seems set to make some significant moves in the ITSM space.
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