What are AI Agents? A Complete Guide
Autonomous AI agents can understand and interpret customers’ questions using natural language. Here’s what service leaders need to know about the next evolution in proactive, personalised support.
Autonomous AI agents can understand and interpret customers’ questions using natural language. Here’s what service leaders need to know about the next evolution in proactive, personalised support.
Maybe you’re dealing with a surge in case volume, but your team is stretched thin. Or you’d love to offer 24/7 support, but tight budgets make it difficult to justify a round-the-clock workforce. Or you’re under pressure to reduce response times, yet customers just keep expecting more — and want everything faster. That’s where AI agents like Agentforce come into play. Let’s take a few minutes to review what AI agents are, how they work and what you can do to deploy them successfully.
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An AI agent is an intelligent system that can understand and respond to customer enquiries without human intervention. They rely on machine learning and natural language processing (NLP) to handle a wide range of tasks, from answering simple questions to resolving complex issues — even multi-tasking. Most importantly, AI agents can continuously improve its own performance through self-learning. This is distinct from traditional AI, which requires human input for specific tasks. (back to top)
Here’s a breakdown of how AI agents operate:
By combining these capabilities, AI agents can handle a wide range of customer service tasks autonomously, such as making product recommendations, troubleshooting problems and engaging in follow-up interactions. This frees up human agents to focus on more complex and value-added activities. (back to top)
The adoption of AI agents in customer service offers numerous benefits, transforming how businesses interact with their customers and manage their service operations.
AI agents can handle multiple customer interactions simultaneously, significantly reducing response times and increasing the efficiency of customer service operations. This allows businesses to handle higher volumes of enquiries without compromising on the quality of service.
AI agents provide quick and accurate responses, leading to higher customer satisfaction scores. They can use data to personalise interactions, enhancing the overall customer experience. And because they learn over time, they’re geared toward continuous improvement.
Unlike most human agents, AI agents are available around the clock, ensuring that customer enquiries are addressed promptly, regardless of time zones or business hours. This continuous availability helps businesses meet customer expectations for self-service and improves customer loyalty.
AI agents can easily scale to handle increased volumes of customer interactions, making them ideal for businesses looking to grow without compromising service quality. As case volume increases, AI agents can be easily adjusted to handle the additional load, ensuring consistent and reliable support.
AI agents generate valuable data on customer interactions, preferences and behaviours. Businesses can use this data to gain insights into customer needs and trends, enabling them to make informed decisions and improve their service offerings.
AI agents provide consistent and accurate responses to customer enquiries, reducing the risk of errors and ensuring that customers receive reliable information. This consistency helps build trust and confidence in the brand.
AI agents offer numerous benefits, including improved productivity, reduced costs, enhanced decision-making and a better customer experience. As McKinsey found, more than 72% of companies surveyed are already deploying AI solutions, with a growing interest in generative AI. Given that activity, it would not be surprising to see companies begin to incorporate frontier technologies such as agents into their planning processes and future AI road maps."
By leveraging these advanced AI solutions, businesses can stay ahead of the curve and drive innovation for customer engagement. (back to top)
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If you’re getting ready to deploy AI agents, here are some best practices to keep in mind:
If you're looking to integrate AI agents into your customer service strategy, Salesforce Service Cloud can help. Here’s how:
By providing personalised support at scale, AI agents represent a great leap forward for service organisations. Businesses that embrace this technology will be well-positioned to reduce costs while meeting the demands of modern customers in a competitive global market. (back to top)
You can scale your customer service with the power of generative AI on a unified foundation of trusted data. See how this technology improves efficiency and generates revenue from the contact centre to the field.
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