🌅 The Sunrise of AI Agents 👩‍🚀

4 min readSep 16, 2024

AI is moving at lightning speed and it’s revolutionizing businesses in unimaginable ways. As companies strive to stay competitive, the shift from traditional tools to advanced autonomous agents is no longer just a trend but a crucial need and a key differentiating and strategic factor. This breakthrough opens way to a new era: The Sunrise of AI Agents. Just like the sun rising to brighten a new day, AI agents are riding the next wave of technological innovation, marking the start of a new journey towards a bright future. I’m super excited!

From Bots to Agents

I have worked extensively on both Einstein Bots and Einstein Copilot, witnessing firsthand the incredible journey of AI evolution. In Einstein Bots, my focus was on Builder Experience and Language AI, which involved creating the first PreTrained Transformer Model as well as the first Q&A systems. Moving to Einstein Copilot, the Builder has evolved to Agentforce Authoring.

The introduction of autonomous AI agents (agentic systems) marks an extraordinary leap forward. These agents, such as the Agentforce Service Agent, redefine how businesses operate. Additionally, the Customizing AI Agent Builder empowers enterprises to tailor-make agents specific to their needs.

What Agents Are

AI agents are proactive, autonomous applications designed to execute specialized tasks independently. The anatomy of an AI Agent or in order to create one, you’ll need to give it:

Role: Defines the agent’s purpose and broader goals.
Data: The data an agent relies on to perform tasks.
Actions: The specific tasks the agent can execute.
Guardrails: The operational guidelines for the agent.
Surfaces: Platforms on which agents can interact, including web, mobile, WhatsApp, Slack, but also headless surfaces using proactive invocation mechanisms like Flows or Apex or via any 3rd Party System API callout.

For example, service agents engage customers across channels autonomously, while custom agents can be built from scratch to either run in the background or interact with human users. Consider a travel expense management and approver agent that simplifies this labor-intensive process. I’m sure you all love your expense reports after a week at Dreamforce or from other business travels. It’s simply a great use of your time, right? What if you could have a custom agent do all of that for you?

What Agents Aren’t

To dispel common misconceptions, it’s essential to note that AI agents are not advanced humanoid or sentient robots 😃 (joke aside). They are far more sophisticated than traditional chatbots and perform beyond predefined simple tasks. While they require minimal human oversight, they are capable of escalating complex issues to human staff when necessary.

Business Agents

AI agents can be grouped and summarized into specialized roles:

Customer Service Agents: Service Agent, CX Agent.
Sales Agents: SDR Agent, Sales Coach Agent.
Marketing Agents: Personal Shopper Agent.
Operations and Analytics Agents: Operations Agent, Analytics Agent.
Industry-Specific Agents: Healthcare Agent, Banking Agent, IT Agent, Finance Agent.

Each of these roles is designed to autonomously handle tasks that were traditionally manual and time-consuming, thereby increasing efficiency and accuracy.

Humans & Agents

The partnership between humans and AI agents is transformative. These agents not only handle mundane and time-consuming tasks but also tackle complex, data-heavy operations. For instance, in customer service, AI agents can autonomously resolve issues, provide personalized support, and escalate challenging inquiries to human staff, ensuring a seamless customer experience.

Why I’m Excited About Agents

With over 10 years of experience in language AI, I’ve had the privilege of witnessing the evolution from basic interactive voice recognition (IVR) systems and chatbots to sophisticated AI agents. Starting with Einstein Bots, advancing through Einstein Copilot, and now working on Agentforce has been an incredible ride. My primary focus has been on Builder, Language AI, and Platform play in these endeavors.

Today, I am the PM Lead for Agentforce Authoring at the Salesforce AI Platform. Agentforce enables businesses to build and customize autonomous AI agents that support employees and customers around the clock. Trusted business data ensures accuracy and consistency, and the platforms supported include web, mobile, WhatsApp, Slack, and APIs. Key features include pre-built templates and low-code customization.

Wrap Up

The opportunity to leverage AI agents is unprecedented, and Dreamforce 2024 is your adventure to building these innovative solutions. Join our sessions at Dreamforce! Come over and start building your own AI agents. Check out these sessions, and feel free to reach out for expert consultations at the Agentforce Launchpad!