“We feel really excited about the momentum that we’re seeing in the partner network,” Brent Hayward, Salesforce’s head of competitive intelligence, told CRN in an interview.
Salesforce has followed up its reveal of a new artificial intelligence agent marketplace by putting an April launch date on the full release of its Agentforce version 2dx plus a new, free developer edition of Salesforce for building AI agents.
The unveils come as Salesforce wraps up its TDX developer conference, which runs through Thursday in its headquarters city of San Francisco–and as AI rival Microsoft takes direct aim at Salesforce and other customer relationship management (CRM) software providers with its Sales Development and Sales Chat agents.
Brent Hayward, Salesforce’s head of competitive intelligence, told CRN in an interview that the vendor is positioning itself as the company for superior agents with a platform that unifies data and saves users from what Salesforce calls do-it-yourself (DIY) AI.
The Salesforce vision of AI brings plenty of opportunity to its ecosystem of about 12,000 partners, he said.
“With agents, there are going to be opportunities across the entire enterprise,” Hayward said. “Everyone is realizing that maybe the practices that we built to support do-it-yourself AI need to quickly pivot to practices that are now deploying agents. And that’s where, from a Salesforce perspective, we feel really excited about the momentum that we’re seeing in the partner network.”
[RELATED: Salesforce Launches AI Agents Marketplace]
Salesforce TDX
Mike Jortberg, a senior global sales director with Salesforce partner Slalom–No. 27 on CRN’s 2024 Solution Provider 500–told CRN in an interview that Agentforce has broken through an overwise softer sales environment for other areas of IT.
Slalom has leveraged Agentforce for its own sales process and delivery process, he said. Recent Agentforce events Slalom has conducted have been standing-room only. He estimates that his teams have talked to hundreds of customers a week about the platform.
Jortberg said that about 68 percent of Slalom’s use cases for live agents in production are in service, with 19 percent in sales. That’s across 30 projects, 36 clients and 54 agents.
“We’re super excited about it,” Jortberg said. “It’s applicable to every industry in every department.”
Although version 2dx is slated for April, Salesforce plans to release some features in advance, according to the vendor. Agentforce Developer Edition, MuleSoft for Agentforce, and Agentforce invocable actions and the new Agentforce application programming interface (API) are among the features already available.
Agent Builder with AI assist, included with Agentforce, is set for a March release. Agentforce Employee Agent and guardrail evaluation enhancements to the testing center are set for April.
In the fall, Salesforce will release the Agentforce Interaction Explorer.
Agentforce 2dx Features In Depth
The new version of Agentforce promises users the ability to launch proactive AI agents working without constant human oversight and going beyond what Salesforce called reactive, user-initiated chat interfaces–a possible reference to Microsoft’s Copilot AI model.
Users can integrate these autonomous agents into existing data systems, business logic and user interfaces, Salesforce said in a statement.
In Agentforce 2dx are new tools for developers to configure, test and deploy Agentforce faster, according to the vendor. Agentforce pairs with analytics tools to aid with monitoring, debugging and optimizing agent performance.
The new tools include a new API for integrating Agentforce in other systems and apps and invocable actions to embed Agentforce in Salesforce business logic to bring agentic reasoning to workflow automations.
The Agentforce Interaction Explorer allows users to receive detailed reporting and analytics on performance in individual sessions and in general.
A developer edition of Agentforce adds a free environment for prototyping agents, and an integration with MuleSoft allows for developers to leverage natural language for topics and actions.
Developers can now embed Agentforce into no-code Slack automation to trigger agents from Slack events. An employee template feature allows customers to make multiple employee agents for any line of business. And Agentforce Surfaces allows users to add channel- and device-specific interactive components and media to improve how Agentforce shows in digital engagement channels.
Users can leverage Tableau to give agents more real-time business context for more accurate insights and answers. And an AI assistance in Agent Builder allows users to quickly configure agents adhering to best practices, troubleshoot Agentforce answers and give guidance for improving underlying topics and instructions, according to Salesforce.
As for Salesforce Developer Edition, the new iteration promises to enable users to build AI agents and harmonize their data.
The edition offers a dedicated, full-featured environment that doesn’t expire as long as it is used, according to Salesforce. The goal is for reduced development cycles, application building with drag-and-drop tools and integration with applications, websites and third-party systems.
Users can customize and test Agentforce through clicks or coding and ground the platform on structured and unstructured data, according to Salesforce. Developer Edition-made agents can interact with end customers and autonomously, automate workflows across multiple Salesforce objects and actions and target specific customer groups for personalized campaigns and offers.
