{"id":93737,"date":"2026-05-21T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/?p=93737"},"modified":"2026-05-21T09:17:30","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T16:17:30","slug":"lessons-from-one-year-of-manager-agent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/stories\/lessons-from-one-year-of-manager-agent\/","title":{"rendered":"More than 50,000 Hours Back: What a Year of Manager Agent Taught Us"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A year ago, Salesforce made a bet: Managers are the biggest driver of our agentic transformation. But their hands were full \u2014 data scattered across a dozen tools, administrative work crowding out coaching time, and a growing expectation to lead differently in this new agentic age. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So we built Manager Agent<\/strong>, an AI-powered partner that consolidates manager tools into a single entry point accessible in Slack. It handles the busywork of people management, like routine tasks and surfacing team insights, so managers can focus on the part of the job they love most: coaching their people. Manager Agent helps with tasks like surfacing HR information, resolving employee issues, providing coaching support, analyzing survey results, and facilitating performance evaluations and promotions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

We’re not just making managers more efficient, we’re helping them redesign how work gets done.<\/p>\nPallavi Sebastian, SVP, Agentic Talent Experience<\/strong><\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

One year in, Salesforce managers<\/a> hit 100% adoption<\/strong> of Manager Agent and have collectively reclaimed 57,000 hours<\/strong>. Here\u2019s what the journey taught us about managing in the AI era.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Manager Agent is raising the bar for what great people leadership looks like. With a trusted partner handling the routine, managers can focus on what only they can do \u2014 know their people, grow their talent, and build high-performing, AI-fluent teams. We’re not just making managers more efficient, we’re helping them redesign how work gets done.” \u2013 Pallavi Sebastian, SVP, Agentic Talent Experience<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What 85,000 Conversations Taught Us About Managing in the AI Era<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
    \n
  1. The biggest barrier wasn’t skepticism \u2014 it was habit. <\/strong>Managers weren’t resistant to using AI in their day-to-day work. They were busy. The shift happened when we stopped asking managers to go somewhere new and brought the tools into Slack, right into the flow of work.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Time savings matter less than what managers do with the time. <\/strong>More than <\/strong>50,000 hours is the headline. But the more interesting story is what managers did with the time back. Managers told us they used the recovered time for coaching conversations, thinking more carefully about team structure, and acting on engagement data instead of just collecting it. <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Managers are our best drivers of AI fluency. <\/strong>When managers started using AI tools like Manager Agent, their teams followed. Our research found that employee adoption of internal AI tools climbed 32% when managers modeled the behavior. The best part? It happened organically \u2013 because employees experienced the benefits firsthand and felt safe to experiment.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. We started with answers. Now we\u2019re giving insights. <\/strong>At launch, Manager Agent could answer simple HR questions, but the responses were generic. The same answer for every manager. Today, it knows the manager’s team. It can surface information about their direct reports, feedback from stakeholders, and the places where their team may need support. That shift \u2014 from lookup tool to personalized coach \u2014 is where AI gets real.<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  5. The manager of the AI era looks less like an administrator and more like a coach. <\/strong>As admin work shifted to the agent, what surfaced was a clearer picture of what great management actually is: presence, judgment, relationships. And the managers who leaned into it thrived.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    One year in, 57,000 hours back, and we’re still learning. Time savings matter, but what matters more is what comes next: helping managers move beyond gut instinct to lead with clarity. The manager’s role is evolving, but one thing is clear: Managers have never mattered more. So we’re building with that in mind, putting people at the center of every decision, every feature, every step forward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    A year ago, Salesforce made a bet: Managers are the biggest driver of our agentic transformation. But their hands were full \u2014 data scattered across a dozen tools, administrative work crowding out coaching time, and a growing expectation to lead differently in this new agentic age.  So we built Manager Agent, an AI-powered partner that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":93739,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sf_subhead":"","sf_i18n_disclaimer":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"alternateThumbnailId":0,"sf_product_cta_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"sf_content_type":[21232],"sf_theme":[21186],"sf_topic":[21212,20528,21187,1732],"sf_product":[],"sf_industry":[],"sf_role":[],"sf_multimedia_asset":[],"sf_location":[1798],"sf_collection":[21171],"sf_visibility":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-93737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","sf_content_type-snapshots-other","sf_theme-employee-experience","sf_topic-agentic-enterprise","sf_topic-agents","sf_topic-ai","sf_topic-future-of-work","sf_location-global","sf_collection-customer-zero"],"yoast_head":"\n50,000 Hours Back: What a Year of Manager Agent Taught Us - Salesforce<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A year ago, Salesforce made a bet: Managers are the biggest driver of our agentic transformation. But their hands were full \u2014 data scattered across a\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/stories\/lessons-from-one-year-of-manager-agent\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"More than 50,000 Hours Back: What a Year of Manager Agent Taught Us\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A year ago, Salesforce made a bet: Managers are the biggest driver of our agentic transformation. But their hands were full \u2014 data scattered across a\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/stories\/lessons-from-one-year-of-manager-agent\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Salesforce\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/salesforce\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-05-21T17:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/05\/One-Year-Anniversary-of-Manager-Agent.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"675\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@salesforcenews\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@salesforcenews\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"NewsArticle\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/stories\/lessons-from-one-year-of-manager-agent\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/stories\/lessons-from-one-year-of-manager-agent\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"\",\"@id\":\"\"},\"headline\":\"More than 50,000 Hours Back: What a Year of Manager Agent Taught Us\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-05-21T17:00:00+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/stories\/lessons-from-one-year-of-manager-agent\/\"},\"wordCount\":597,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/stories\/lessons-from-one-year-of-manager-agent\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/05\/One-Year-Anniversary-of-Manager-Agent.png\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/stories\/lessons-from-one-year-of-manager-agent\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/stories\/lessons-from-one-year-of-manager-agent\/\",\"name\":\"50,000 Hours Back: What a Year of Manager Agent Taught Us - Salesforce\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/stories\/lessons-from-one-year-of-manager-agent\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/stories\/lessons-from-one-year-of-manager-agent\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/05\/One-Year-Anniversary-of-Manager-Agent.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-05-21T17:00:00+00:00\",\"description\":\"A year ago, Salesforce made a bet: Managers are the biggest driver of our agentic transformation. But their hands were full \u2014 data scattered across a\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/stories\/lessons-from-one-year-of-manager-agent\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/stories\/lessons-from-one-year-of-manager-agent\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/05\/One-Year-Anniversary-of-Manager-Agent.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/05\/One-Year-Anniversary-of-Manager-Agent.png\",\"width\":1200,\"height\":675,\"caption\":\"50,000 Hours Back: What a Year of Manager Agent Taught Us\"},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/\",\"name\":\"Salesforce\",\"description\":\"Get the latest Salesforce press releases, announcements, stories, and media contacts. See today\u2019s CRM news.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Salesforce\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/08\/default.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/08\/default.jpg\",\"width\":1200,\"height\":630,\"caption\":\"Salesforce\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/salesforce\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/salesforcenews\",\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/salesforce\/\"]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"50,000 Hours Back: What a Year of Manager Agent Taught Us - Salesforce","description":"A year ago, Salesforce made a bet: Managers are the biggest driver of our agentic transformation. But their hands were full \u2014 data scattered across a","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/stories\/lessons-from-one-year-of-manager-agent\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"More than 50,000 Hours Back: What a Year of Manager Agent Taught Us","og_description":"A year ago, Salesforce made a bet: Managers are the biggest driver of our agentic transformation. But their hands were full \u2014 data scattered across a","og_url":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/stories\/lessons-from-one-year-of-manager-agent\/","og_site_name":"Salesforce","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/salesforce\/","article_published_time":"2026-05-21T17:00:00+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":675,"url":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/05\/One-Year-Anniversary-of-Manager-Agent.png","type":"image\/png"}],"twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@salesforcenews","twitter_site":"@salesforcenews","twitter_misc":{"Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/stories\/lessons-from-one-year-of-manager-agent\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/stories\/lessons-from-one-year-of-manager-agent\/"},"author":{"name":"","@id":""},"headline":"More than 50,000 Hours Back: What a Year of Manager Agent Taught Us","datePublished":"2026-05-21T17:00:00+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/stories\/lessons-from-one-year-of-manager-agent\/"},"wordCount":597,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/stories\/lessons-from-one-year-of-manager-agent\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/05\/One-Year-Anniversary-of-Manager-Agent.png","inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/stories\/lessons-from-one-year-of-manager-agent\/","url":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/stories\/lessons-from-one-year-of-manager-agent\/","name":"50,000 Hours Back: What a Year of Manager Agent Taught Us - Salesforce","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/stories\/lessons-from-one-year-of-manager-agent\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/stories\/lessons-from-one-year-of-manager-agent\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/05\/One-Year-Anniversary-of-Manager-Agent.png","datePublished":"2026-05-21T17:00:00+00:00","description":"A year ago, Salesforce made a bet: Managers are the biggest driver of our agentic transformation. But their hands were full \u2014 data scattered across a","inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/stories\/lessons-from-one-year-of-manager-agent\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/stories\/lessons-from-one-year-of-manager-agent\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/05\/One-Year-Anniversary-of-Manager-Agent.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/05\/One-Year-Anniversary-of-Manager-Agent.png","width":1200,"height":675,"caption":"50,000 Hours Back: What a Year of Manager Agent Taught Us"},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/","name":"Salesforce","description":"Get the latest Salesforce press releases, announcements, stories, and media contacts. See today\u2019s CRM news.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/#organization","name":"Salesforce","url":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/08\/default.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2020\/08\/default.jpg","width":1200,"height":630,"caption":"Salesforce"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/salesforce\/","https:\/\/x.com\/salesforcenews","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/salesforce\/"]}]}},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2026\/05\/One-Year-Anniversary-of-Manager-Agent.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"Salesforce","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93737"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93743,"href":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93737\/revisions\/93743"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93737"},{"taxonomy":"sf_content_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sf_content_type?post=93737"},{"taxonomy":"sf_theme","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sf_theme?post=93737"},{"taxonomy":"sf_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sf_topic?post=93737"},{"taxonomy":"sf_product","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sf_product?post=93737"},{"taxonomy":"sf_industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sf_industry?post=93737"},{"taxonomy":"sf_role","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sf_role?post=93737"},{"taxonomy":"sf_multimedia_asset","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sf_multimedia_asset?post=93737"},{"taxonomy":"sf_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sf_location?post=93737"},{"taxonomy":"sf_collection","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sf_collection?post=93737"},{"taxonomy":"sf_visibility","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sf_visibility?post=93737"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.salesforce.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=93737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}