Salesforce conquers the market with Agentforce: A look at the new era of AI-supported collaboration

Marc Benioff, the visionary CEO of Salesforce, has once again proven that he is not only a talented salesperson but also a master at creating hype. The latest venture into the world of artificial intelligence (AI) carries the name Agentforce – a platform that aims to revolutionize companies by increasing the use of AI agents. In a recently held quarterly earnings call, Benioff presented impressive figures: 200 completed deals for Agentforce in a single quarter and the planned hiring of 1,400 new sales talents to further expand the business. During the presentation, he mentioned renowned customers such as FedEx, Adecco, Accenture, ACE Hardware, IBM, and RBC Wealth Management, who are already relying on Agentforce. Salesforce now expects revenue for the current fiscal year to be between $37.8 and $38 billion – an increase of 8% to 9% compared to the previous year, driven by the strength of its AI products. Benioff expressed to TechCrunch his expectation that Salesforce customers will deploy one billion AI agents next year to provide businesses with a limitless workforce. He emphasized that these agents are not mere tools but will become real employees that analyze data, make decisions, and perform actions around the clock. However, some questions remain open about how far this vision can be realized. The technology continues to struggle with well-known challenges such as the so-called "hallucination" – an erroneous representation that mimics creativity. Benioff, however, assured that Agentforce would deliver exceptionally few erroneous results by being trained on up to 300 petabytes of real corporate data. As 2023, the year of AI, comes to an end, it is clear that companies have found their path in AI investment. After a year of exploration and pilot projects, the answer for many is: AI agents for sales and customer service.