US tech behemoth Salesforce unveiled, ‘agentforce 360’ on Tuesday, its latest generative AI platform built to autonomate repetitive tasks, as concerns around AI’s impact on jobs continue to swirl, and the company itself navigates workforce reductions.
Salesforce executives framed the platform as a way to augment rather than replace human workers, providing tools that allow AI agents to handle routine tasks while employees focus on higher-value work.
Brent Hayward, head of competitive intelligence at the firm, speaking at Dreamforce, claimed: “We don’t have a lot of evidence of production reductions, but, like all technology adoption, it shifts the work”.
“First-line service folks with highly technical skills can now be forward-deployed, teaching customers how to use products effectively”.
Hayward added that agentforce 360 was built to meet enterprise demands across four core areas: data harmonisation, agentic capabilities, trust and governance, and integration with business processes.
The executive claimed that while some job functions will be affected, Salesforce is focusing on redeploying human talent to higher-value work.
“A lot of our first line, highly technical support folks, who weren’t thrilled to handle repetitive calls, are now moving into technical sales or deployment roles. They’re teaching customers how to use products effectively and solving more complex problems”, he said.
AI impact on the workforce
While Salesforce claims to center its new tools around the human-AI partnership, the platform’s potential to reshape roles cannot be overlooked.
Agents now manage repetitive calls and tasks, freeing technical staff to engage in more complex problem-solving or customer-facing roles.
The company also highlighted multi-channel AI integration, including voice, Slack, and other enterprise systems, allowing agents to act across various processes without constant human oversight.
But the broader labour market shows early signs of AI-related shifts, with job adverts having dropped most sharply in lines of work highly exposed to AI, with roles in IT, data, media, finance, and other professional areas seeing declines of up to 38 per cent since May 2022.
Even as AI adoption spreads, with nearly 80 per cent of the world’s largest companies reporting use of AI in at least one function, broad productivity gains remain limited, and only around 20 per cent report tangible financial impact.
The slowdown in recruitment is affecting young graduates in particular.
Unemployment for those aged 16 to 24 has risen from 10.9 per cent to 14.3 per cent since 2022, and graduate-level job postings have fallen 33 per cent.
Meanwhile, many graduates start in lower-skilled roles like call centres, retail, or care work,that have also seen sharper drops in vacancies due to weak consumer demand and rising employment costs.
Hayward and other Salesforce executives stressed that AgentForce is designed to complement human work.
“Every company is really thinking about what is the strategy they’re going to be deploying for reskilling their workforce”, Hayward said. “Pausing recruitment may seem prudent but risks leaving gaps in the future workforce. AI may be causing growing pains now, but its long-term success depends on how people and technology evolve together”.