At Agentforce World Tour Sydney, local service leaders gathered to tackle one of the most pressing transformations of our time — shifting to an AI agent-first service model. The message was clear: AI isn’t the future of service. It’s the now.
And the opportunity is bigger than just automation. It’s about building service experiences that are faster, smarter, more personal, and trusted.
The session showed how the world’s most innovative service organisations are delighting customers with every service interaction. Here’s what we learned.
Meeting rising consumer expectations to lead in service
The job of a service leader has always been challenging. But in today’s environment, it’s become uniquely complex. Customers expect more than just fast responses — 77% of customers now expect an instant connection when they reach out. They want meaningful, personalised interactions, delivered in the moment and across any channel.
At the same time, service teams are being asked to do more with less. Budget constraints are tightening. Talent is harder to retain. And service representatives are burning out under a mountain of low-value work, with nearly two-thirds (61%) of their time spent on administrative tasks away from customers.
AI is how we bridge these impossibly high customer expectations and the demands on our service team to do more with less.
The key shift? Moving from a reactive support model to an AI Agent-First one in which AI agents take on routine requests and surface insights in real time, freeing customer representatives to deliver the kind of service only people can.
What if your service team could do more with less?
See how AI agents are transforming service and what it means for your team.
Step 1: Put AI agents to work — fast
Getting started with AI doesn’t have to mean a major transformation project. In fact, one of the biggest myths about AI adoption is that it’s complicated or time-consuming. As Matthew Watson, Customer Service Transformation Director, shared in the session, Agentforce is built for fast, low-friction deployment.
With Agentforce, organisations can launch AI agents that handle complex requests with empathy, not just scripted chat.
“Agentforce makes that easy with out-of-the-box templates that allow you to get started really quickly,” said Watson.
We saw an AI agent assist a vending machine distributor across a customer’s full journey — from recommending products to scheduling an installation. Agentforce understands not just text, but images and voice. It uses contextual intelligence to deliver real outcomes, autonomously.
Step 2: Elevate human agents to trusted advisors
While AI agents can handle the high-volume, low-complexity tasks, human service representatives are more valuable than ever, especially when dealing with emotionally charged or policy-sensitive cases.
This is also a great place for organisations to start. Testing AI agents internally, before putting them in front of customers, allows teams to build trust in the technology and fine-tune performance in a lower-risk environment.
The new Service Assistant, embedded directly into the console, embedded directly into the agent console, gives your team real-time recommendations, resolution steps, and AI-drafted messages that are all grounded in the customer’s profile and case history.
Instead of searching through multiple tabs, knowledge bases, or past interactions, service representatives see a consolidated view with everything they need. That means less time digging for information, and more time focused on the customer.
Step 3: Supercharge field service with intelligence
A key theme from the session was how to extend the value of AI beyond the contact centre. With powerful automation and intelligence already driving results for service teams, the next opportunity is clear — bringing those same capabilities into the field.
Field service remains one of the most resource-intensive areas of customer support. Missed appointments, inefficient routing, and reactive maintenance can drive up costs and degrade customer satisfaction. But with AI embedded in dispatch consoles and technician toolkits, that’s starting to change.
Agentforce helps dispatchers proactively fill gaps in technician schedules, recommend preventative jobs, and optimise routes in real time. Technicians benefit too, with Agentforce as a hands-on partner in the field for troubleshooting via photo and voice input, identifying the missing inventory, and recommending a nearby supplier. All without a single phone call back to HQ.
It’s a powerful combination of automation and augmentation — and it’s turning field service into a connected, revenue-generating arm of the business.
Step 4: Turn every signal into service intelligence
Every interaction with a customer — whether it’s a chatbot query, a phone call, or a field visit — generates insight. But most service leaders struggle to harness it, because data lives in silos across teams, systems, and channels.
CX Intelligence brings it all together and makes it actionable in the moment. We were walked us through a live example where a spike in negative sentiment revealed confusion around a recent warranty policy change. Within minutes, the team used Agentforce to draft a customer email and alert policy stakeholders via Slack, transforming insight into impact.
Building a Business Case for Service with AI
Your guide to kickstarting a service transformation with Agentforce.
Trailblazer stories: AIA NZ and BOC Limited
We heard from two local Trailblazers who are already shifting to AI Agent-First service. Luke Longney, CTO at AIA New Zealand, described their transition from a standalone telephony system to an integrated Service Cloud Voice setup, which was completed in just 3.5 months.
“Within 48 hours, our call centre metrics were starting to trend above where they were before we cut across,” said Longney.
But for Longney, the real breakthrough was seeing how AI can lift the cognitive load off his team. After listening in on several customer calls, he saw firsthand how customer representatives were struggling to be present while also taking notes for call summaries. Seeing Agentforce handle summaries and wrap-up work was the “wow” moment.
Jamie Innes, General Manager at BOC Limited, shared how their phased approach — starting with Sales Cloud, then Service Cloud, and now Field Service — has delivered measurable gains.
Since adopting Salesforce, BOC Limited has cut abandon rates by 3.5%, slashed call wait times by 21%, and improved field service density to deliver a 5.3% cost benefit. They’ve also started deploying AI chatbots for order placement and in-store assistant tools to help retail staff better serve customers in real time.
Start where you are — and scale what works
AI doesn’t require a complete reinvention of your service strategy. It starts with small, focused steps — automating a single workflow, deploying one AI agent or enabling smarter insights for your team. The real transformation comes when those wins start to compound.
With the right data, connected systems and a platform designed for action, AI becomes more than a tool. It becomes a trusted partner that helps your teams work smarter, makes customers feel valued, and helps your business deliver faster, more connected service.
Read more
- 5 Characteristics of an Agentforce Company: The Agent-First Blueprint
- Front Office 2.0: Unlocking Service and Efficiency with AI
- Agentforce World Tour Sydney: What If Your Workforce Had No Limits?
Building a Business Case for Service with AI
Your guide to kickstarting a service transformation with Agentforce.
