The third wave of AI at Salesforce: How Agentforce is changing the game

Credera Team

The third wave of AI at Salesforce: How Agentforce is changing the game

At Dreamforce 2024, Salesforce made a number of exciting announcements, with Agentforce undoubtedly stealing the spotlight. In this blog post, we’ll take a closer look at the most important changes and innovations for boosting efficiency and improving customer interactions.

Introducing Agentforce

Agentforce, a customizable artificial intelligence (AI) agent builder, helps organizations build and manage autonomous agents for a variety of business tasks.

But first, what exactly is an agent?

An agent is similar to a chatbot... but with a difference. Traditional chatbots are often limited to answering pre-defined questions with scripted responses—if you ask them something outside their training, they might give you a generic response that doesn't really help. Agents built with Agentforce use large language models (LLMs) and generative AI to truly understand what customers are asking. They can grasp the context of inquiries, allowing them to make decisions on their own—whether that’s processing requests or resolving issues based on real-time data from your company’s customer relationship management (CRM) system.

The role of Atlas

Central to the functionality of Agentforce is the Atlas reasoning engine. You can think of Atlas as the “brain” of the operation. It's not just an assistive tool; it’s an agentic system, which means it has more freedom to act on behalf of the user.

Atlas generates a plan based on what needs to be done. If it needs to adjust that plan after evaluation, it can refine it as necessary. If additional information comes into play, it can loop back to gather that data. When it’s time to act, Atlas knows which business processes (for example, which flows) to use and engages with customers or employees via their preferred channel.

This level of sophistication means Agentforce can make a real difference in how efficiently your teams operate. It streamlines tasks and creates a smoother experience for both staff and customers, handling routine inquiries more efficiently than human agents and freeing up your team to focus on more complex tasks.

Speed to value

One of the best things about Agentforce is its focus on delivering quick results. Many AI projects can be heavy on resources and take months, if not years, to get off the ground. But with Agentforce, Salesforce is all about speeding things up. It taps into what you’ve already built within your Salesforce org, allowing you to launch solutions quickly and with more control. Salesforce also offers pre-built Agentforce agents for your specific business needs: Service Agent, Sales Development Representative Agent, Sales Coach, Personal Shopper Agent, or Campaign Agent—all customizable with Agent Builder.

Agentforce for Service and Sales will be generally available starting Oct. 25, 2024, and some elements of the Atlas Reasoning Engine will roll out in February 2025. Pricing starts at $2 per conversation with volume discounts available.

Transforming customer insights with Data Cloud and Marketing Cloud

But Dreamforce wasn’t just about Agentforce. At the core of Salesforce’s offerings is Data Cloud, which serves as the backbone for all Salesforce cloud products. It just got even better with processing unstructured data—which can account for up to 90% of all company data—that traditional reporting systems often overlook. With the newly added ability to access and analyze more types of unstructured formats, including video and audio (like sales demos, customer service calls, and voicemails), businesses can uncover valuable insights and take informed actions across Customer 360. Additionally, with Data Cloud One, organizations can now connect multiple Salesforce orgs that may be siloed across different departments, allowing them to "share" data effortlessly across all Salesforce instances using a no-code, point-and-click setup.

Marketing Cloud Advanced edition, announced at Dreamforce, is the “big sister” to Marketing Cloud Growth, offering even more promising features to increase the capabilities of larger marketing teams. These features include Path Experiment, which allows teams to test different content strategies across channels, and Einstein Engagement Scoring, which provides deeper insights into customer behavior.

With those enhancements to Data Cloud and Marketing Cloud, companies will be equipped with tools that make customer interactions more meaningful and measurable, driving greater audience engagement across all touchpoints.

Empowering the workforce through education

Salesforce is fully committed to making AI accessible to everyone. They’ve just announced free instructor-led courses and AI certifications available through 2025, aimed at equipping the Salesforce community with essential skills in AI and data management.

To further support this mission, Salesforce is establishing AI centers in major cities around the world, starting with London. These centers will provide hands-on training and resources, fostering expertise in AI and ensuring users can effectively leverage the tools available to them.

They have also launched a global Agentforce World Tour to promote understanding and adoption of the new capabilities introduced at Dreamforce. This tour, kicking off in London, features repackaged sessions from the conference and provides opportunities for on-the-ground specialists to answer questions and offer guidance.

The bottom line

So what does all this mean for businesses? With Salesforce rolling out Agentforce, along with enhancements to Data Cloud and Marketing Cloud, organizations are well equipped to operate more efficiently and connect with their customers in more meaningful ways. And the focus on education—like free courses and the global outreach initiatives—makes it easier than ever to get onboard.

If you’d like to discuss how we can help your business get the most out of Salesforce with data and AI, connect with us and book a meeting with our team.