In this exclusive Q&A, Relina Bulchandani discusses Salesforce’s expanding presence in India, the upcoming Bangalore Tower, and how the physical workplace is being redefined for seamless human-AI collaboration in the Agentic Era.
Q. How is the company thinking about India within its global workplace and growth strategy?
The momentum we’re seeing in India right now is truly remarkable. With an incredible talent pool and strong customer momentum around Agentforce, the region is uniquely positioned to help our business drive global growth and empower customers worldwide on their own agentic journeys.
While we’ve maintained a presence in India for over a decade, our growth in the region has accelerated over the past four years. Today, our footprint spans seven locations, including established Centres of Excellence in Hyderabad and Bangalore, alongside operations in Mumbai, Pune, Gurgaon, Jaipur, and our newest site in Chennai. And we’re thrilled to be expanding our presence in the region with a new tower on the way in Bangalore – our first named tower in the country and 10th globally.
India represents one of the greatest opportunities for our business — not just because of the scale, but because of the ambition and talent I’ve seen here firsthand. It’s a real testament to what’s possible when you invest in the right people and the right places.
Q. Looking back at the opening of the Hyderabad CoE in 2016, and then the 2023 expansion, how has Hyderabad grown from a talent hub to a global innovation driver?
The Hyderabad Centre of Excellence story is really a story of evolution. What started as a strong talent hub has grown into a global innovation engine. Products are now being built here from concept to launch, entirely out of Hyderabad. The CoE’s role across the product lifecycle continues to evolve, with AI helping teams move faster, innovate more effectively, and deliver greater impact.
And we can’t talk about Hyderabad without also mentioning Bangalore. Together, they form two of our greatest Centres of Excellence in the region. A lot of people want to live and work in these cities, and what’s exciting is the calibre of innovation coming out of both. These two cities are at the heart of India’s AI momentum, and that’s exactly why we’re expanding our investment here.
Q. As we enter the Agentic Era, how are workplaces being redesigned to facilitate seamless human-AI collaboration?
The traditional office has evolved into a purposeful destination designed around the experiences and connections that can’t be replicated digitally. Today’s workplace is where serendipitous encounters spark groundbreaking innovations, where teams build the trust needed for complex collaborations, and where company culture is forged through shared experiences.
What that means practically is that our spaces need to be far more flexible and adaptable than ever before. They need to seamlessly host large teams coming together for AI fluency training and onboarding, and just as easily pivot for small, focused groups doing deep, high-value work. That flexibility isn’t a nice-to-have — it’s foundational to how we design every space.
That’s what makes me so excited about opening Salesforce Tower Bangalore. The best learnings from nine Salesforce towers across the globe are now being channelled into Salesforce’s 10th tower in Bangalore. The goal is to create an environment that promotes humans and AI agents working together, seamlessly.
Q. At a moment when AI is transforming how work gets done, how is Salesforce thinking about the role of the physical workplace?
The physical workplace has never been more relevant — and I’d argue it’s never been more exciting. It’s where the uniquely human skills that AI simply can’t replicate come to life: judgement, creativity, empathy, and the ability to navigate ambiguity. Those capabilities matter more now than ever.
When we think about real estate at Salesforce, our approach is simple. Humans, agents, and robots working together. Agents enable reasoning, planning, and action, helping us tackle low-hanging operational work and freeing humans for higher-order work. Robots take that further – think predictive maintenance, facilities management, proactive building operations. The combination of humans, agents, and robots is the future of the workplace.
But the human element remains critical. People come to our spaces to connect, to innovate, to get productive quickly, and to ideate on what’s next. The physical workplace is a vessel for curating human experiences and that role has only grown more important in the agentic era.
Q. How is Salesforce’s approach to designing its India offices, including the new Bangalore tower, rooted in local culture and community?
The opportunity with the Bangalore Tower was to create a space that feels unmistakably Salesforce, while also feeling deeply rooted in India.
As Salesforce’s 10th tower, the goal was to carefully balance the global Salesforce brand, the DNA, the values expressed through physical space, with meaningful local nuance.
Every regional space needs to function as a hub for collaboration, productivity, and innovation, but it also needs to reflect the local community and culture. For the Bangalore Tower, the design was very intentional. Materials were sourced locally, including fabrics, designs, stone, and other materials, so that when you walk in, you know exactly where you are: Bangalore, Karnataka, India.
This isn’t a copy-paste design. While we have global design guidelines for our spaces – for example, every Salesforce tower has an Ohana Floor – we’re reimagining it for Bangalore. Given the scale of our food and cafeteria offerings here, we’re creating a salon space instead, designed for meaningful connection, hands-on learning, and community gatherings.
Our hope is that you walk into a Salesforce Tower in New York, London, or Bangalore and instantly recognise the Salesforce DNA, while also feeling deeply connected to the local culture and community.
Q. How does our real estate strategy make the 1-1-1 model and our social impact tangible for local communities in India?
Our approach to real estate is deeply rooted in our core values: Trust, Customer Success, Innovation, Equality, and Sustainability. A key part of that is connecting our physical spaces to Salesforce’s mission of giving back through the 1-1-1 model, which commits 1% of our equity, technology, and our employees’ time back into the communities where we operate.
What I love is that you can actually see and feel that commitment in our spaces. Our towers aren’t built just for employees. They’re designed to be a home for our customers, our partners, and the communities we’re proud to be part of. On weeknights and weekends, we open our Ohana Floors to local nonprofits and foundations. Giving back is part of our DNA, and our physical spaces are one of the most tangible ways we can act on that.
As we grow our presence in India, that commitment comes with us. The Bangalore Tower won’t just be a place where our people come to work — it will be a gathering place for the community, a beacon of our values, and a physical expression of our culture.
Q. If you could design a custom “Agent” to help you manage the global real estate portfolio, what is the one “human” task you would never delegate to it?
The magic of opening a new space. There’s something extraordinary about seeing all of the transactions, the activity, the design, the construction, and the operations come together and then watching people walk in and experience it for the first time. That sense of delight is irreplaceable.
I want agents to seamlessly handle event logistics, deploy robots to fix the air conditioning for someone who’s unhappy with the temperature, cancel meeting rooms that are no longer needed, and help employees quickly answer questions when they visit a different office. Let agents handle the logistics brilliantly.
But the act of opening our spaces with employees, in person, in real life? That’s the magic.
