Salesforce: 200 major customers join Agentforce

More than 200 major customers have already signed contracts with Salesforce to gain access to the new AI platform Agentforce. This was reported by Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff at the presentation of the latest quarterly figures. Agentforce enables companies and employees to create AI agents without having to have any programming knowledge. These agents carry out the tasks assigned to them. All major AI providers are currently working on AI agents, and many even see this as a step towards general artificial intelligence (AGI).

Salesforce only introduced Agentforce this quarter and they have only been available since the end of October. The first 200 customers include large companies such as FedEx, Adecco and IBM. Benioff said in his report that Salesforce wants to hire 1400 new people in order to be able to close the many more deals that will follow. He expects thousands of orders. AI agents can take over customer contact, for example, and are much more flexible than standardized automation. However, AI agents can also be used in the fields of medicine or justice. A medical agent could simply remind patients to take their medication, but also provide further assistance.

AI agents as a new software category

AI agents are based on so-called large action models, which are similar in structure to large language models (LLMs), but are also trained with instructions for action. This means that they can both understand the language of an LLM and derive orders from it.

In line with the good start, Salesforce's forecast for the annual financial statements has also been raised – from 37.8 billion US dollars to 38 billion. "Agentforce, our complete enterprise AI system integrated into the Salesforce platform, is at the center of a groundbreaking transformation," says Benioff. The rise of AI agents will revolutionize the world of work. "With Agentforce, we are not only experiencing the future – we are leading it by ushering in a new era of digital work for every company and every industry."

Microsoft also offers AI agents that you can create yourself. They have also recently become available and should be able to answer customer queries, but also monitor supply chains or fill out delivery notes. Microsoft already offers a number of such AI agents, including a moderation agent for meetings and an agent for real-time translations. AI agents are repeatedly being touted as the new apps. OpenAI is said to be working on an agent system that is expected to be released in the coming weeks.

(emw)