How Agentforce Is Transforming Business By Unlocking Digital Labour

Whenever the topic of agentic AI arises these days, the same question invariably follows suit: “How is this any different from the automation we’ve been sold for the last 30 years?”

And having spent (almost) that amount of time in the industry, I have a take on this. The difference comes down to two major shifts. First, large language models (LLMs) have completely changed the game. Unlike traditional automation tools, which followed rigid deterministic rules, LLMs can understand vast amounts of human-produced text, generate new content, and even approximate human reasoning and planning. This means AI isn’t just processing tasks, it’s actively assisting, problem-solving and creating efficiencies so humans can focus on the work that really matters.

Second, the pace of innovation has exploded. AI is now helping to accelerate its own development, and the massive investment in digital labor is pushing businesses, economies and entire industries forward faster than ever before. This isn’t just another wave of automation—it’s a fundamental shift in how work gets done.

But what sets agentic AI apart from these previous iterations? Why should businesses take action now?

Agentforce: What AI Was Meant to Be

Agentforce is the next generation of AI that will fundamentally shift how businesses operate. It’s not just about automating simple tasks; it’s about creating a new kind of workforce powered by autonomous AI agents that are always-on and capable of driving value in ways that previous automation tools could not. It’s what AI was meant to be. 

Agentforce is an enterprise-grade, trusted agentic AI platform built to unlock trapped value. In many industries, there are operational inefficiencies and unrecognised opportunities buried deep within data, processes or human workflows. Agentforce is the bridge that connects businesses to this trapped value by orchestrating workflows and augmenting human capacity, enabling smarter, faster decision-making grounded in trusted data and personalised customer interactions at scale. 

This leap in capability is incredibly important when we think about what AI can do for businesses. It’s not about replacing human workers; it’s about augmenting their capability and capacity. Businesses are tapping into always-on digital labour that can complement human efforts, allowing teams to focus on higher-value strategic tasks while AI handles the repetitive work, like pivoting their newly available human capacity toward generating new revenue streams or business models.
This approach has already proven successful with local companies like TripADeal, whose story is a fantastic example of how Agentforce is unlocking new possibilities to go to market quickly, make a real impact with customers, and scale fast and effectively.

TripADeal’s Success With Personalisation at Scale

As a relatively small company that prides themselves on exceptional customer experiences, TripADeal were being presented with a significant challenge: delivering highly-personalised, high-quality customer service at scale. 

Travel is an inherently personal industry. Every customer has unique preferences, budgets and travel histories. So how could TripADeal provide the tailored experiences their customers demand while maintaining the efficiency needed to scale their business?

It sounds complicated, but it wasn’t. In just five weeks, we helped TripADeal build an Agentforce-powered assistant that could provide accurate, personalised recommendations based on rich, highly-secure customer data. We designed an Agentforce agent with clicks, not code—an agent named Rio—that understood TripADeal’s specific offerings: everything from unique travel packages to their customer demographics, their travel history and browsing history. By integrating their trusted data and implementing strict guardrails, we were able to create a highly-personalised experience for every customer, reducing the risk of generic responses or inaccurate hallucinations.

Businesses have always documented their processes for regulatory reasons, or onboarding new employees. But now, they’re realising that properly codifying their business—its products, brand voice and operations—not only helps newcomers to the business but also enables AI to generate content, respond to queries and scale services at a cost base that’s approaching zero over time. That shift has turned documentation from a nice-to-have into a must-have, allowing Agentforce to produce results that are both accurate and highly relevant to transform how TripADeal interacts with its customers.

The importance of having your own data on a deeply unified platform like Salesforce cannot be overstated. It’s not enough for Rio to simply know about travel packages—it needs to understand the nuances of TripADeal’s customers: where they live, what they like, what trips they’ve taken, what destinations they’re interested in, and even what browsing behaviour they’ve exhibited. By unifying structured and unstructured data under a trusted governance, security, and compliance framework, Agentforce always protects customer data and complies with global standards. 

It’s this experience that we wanted to give the public as part of our recent ‘Meant To Be’ activation in Sydney’s Martin Place, which was designed to make agentic AI tangible, engaging and fun. Rather than just talking about Agentforce, we wanted people to experience its impact firsthand. Using natural language, visitors could plan their own holidays using the same Agentforce assistant (Rio) that helps TripADeal customers, giving them a real-world look at how agentic AI is completely transforming familiar experiences. It was all about hands-on interaction—because the best way to understand this technology is to use it. 

AI that Plays Well with Others

Another critical point that often gets overlooked is the ability to integrate seamlessly with existing systems, investments and data. Too many AI solutions operate in isolation, creating silos that make it difficult to integrate and scale. 

In the case of TripADeal, for example, we leveraged an image generation model that integrated to Agentforce through our Amazon Bedrock partnership. And while Agentforce is incredibly powerful on its own, we wanted to demonstrate that it could play well with other systems in a more typical enterprise tech stack. This is another key reason why Agentforce stands out. It natively connects to everything in Salesforce, to other relevant enterprise data through zero copy, and can connect to your own AI models through Amazon Bedrock. 

For businesses, this means they don’t have to overhaul their entire tech stack to benefit. They can integrate it into their existing infrastructure and rapidly unlock value without the complexity of building everything from scratch.

Starting Small, Moving Fast

If there’s one key lesson I’ve learned from customers already winning with agentic AI, it’s this: start small and start now. The faster you begin experimenting, the quicker you’ll uncover valuable insights that can transform your business. If you’re not taking advantage of it now, you’re stunting your own growth. 

For TripADeal, this approach worked wonders. You really want to be talking in weeks, not months, to build and deploy, with rapid testing and iteration to ensure Agentforce is working as expected before scaling to a wider customer base. 

It’s also crucial that executives get hands-on with the technology from the get-go. AI doesn’t work in a vacuum, and the more involved you are, the better you can steer its application. This hands-on approach builds a culture of innovation, where your team feels empowered to experiment and learn, rather than waiting for perfect conditions before diving in.

For businesses in highly regulated industries, starting with unregulated use cases or internal use cases is a smart strategy. Experiment with the technology internally before taking it to customers. This reduces the risk while allowing you to validate the results before a full-scale deployment.

A Winning Mindset For The Road Ahead

The journey of AI adoption doesn’t end with a single pilot project. It’s an ongoing process of learning, experimenting and scaling. For businesses looking to get ahead, the key is to embrace a mindset that is agile, responsive and open to new opportunities. That’s the mindset that’s going to win in a market where, every day, we wake up and there’s new innovation making waves in this space.

With Agentforce, businesses now have the tools to unlock trapped value, deliver always-on digital labour and transform operations in ways that were previously unimaginable. As we’ve seen with TripADeal and other customers, the potential for AI in business operations is huge, and we’re only scratching the surface of what’s possible.
To get started on your own Agentforce journey, you can join me in completing the Agentforce Trailblazer Champion module on Trailhead. It’s the perfect way to build your team’s capabilities through hands-on experience of how the tech actually works, ensuring they can harness the full potential of agentic AI and bring real change to your business.