TL;DR UK energy and water companies are currently trapped between £4.48 billion in consumer debt, a 10-year grid connection backlog, and severe skills shortages. Traditional manual processes are no longer fast enough to manage these compounding crises.
For Salesforce users, the solution lies in Agentforce and Slack OS, which provide a “digital workforce” to automate complex actions:
- Debt Recovery: Agentforce uses autonomous reasoning to identify at-risk customers early and set up personalised, compliant repayment plans.
- Grid Efficiency: Slack OS serves as a “command centre,” using AI agents to coordinate between engineers and planners, removing the administrative friction that delays infrastructure projects.
- Bridging the Skills Gap: AI “co-pilots” support field technicians with instant access to technical data, effectively increasing operational capacity without needing new hires.
By shifting from simple automation to agentic technology, utility providers can reduce bad debt, accelerate the green transition, and restore public trust through better transparency.
Unsurprisingly, the UK energy and utilities sector is currently navigating unprecedented operational and financial strain. Recent data from Ofgem reveals that domestic consumer energy debt reached a record high of £4.48 billion by mid-2025, a staggering 71 per cent increase since 2023 (Ofgem, 2025). This financial burden is compounded by a 10-year waiting list for grid connections and a critical shortage of skilled engineers. For many providers, traditional manual processes and siloed data are no longer sufficient to manage these escalating crises.
As the industry reaches a breaking point, a new generation of agentic technology is emerging as the primary solution. Salesforce’s Agentforce and the Slack Operating System (OS) are shifting the paradigm from basic automation to autonomous action, providing the “digital labour” required to stabilise the market and restore public trust.
Solving the Debt Crisis with Compassionate Intelligence
With nearly three-quarters of the £4.48 billion debt stack held by customers with no repayment plan in place, the pressure on collections teams is immense (Ofgem, 2025). Traditional “one-size-fits-all” debt collection often exacerbates customer vulnerability and leads to costly regulatory interventions.
Agentforce offers a sophisticated alternative. These AI agents do not merely send automated reminders; they possess the “reasoning” capabilities to analyse a customer’s specific billing history, energy usage patterns, and external socio-economic factors. When a customer interacts with a provider, an Agentforce agent can proactively identify those at risk of falling into arrears before the first payment is missed.
By integrating with the Einstein Trust Layer, these agents can safely suggest personalised repayment plans or recommend government-backed support schemes, such as the Debt Relief Scheme. This ensures that the 20 per cent to 40 per cent of debt attributed to “move-in” anomalies (where customers use energy without setting up an account) is captured and managed through autonomous, plain-language conversations (Ofgem, 2025).
Slack OS: Breaking the Gridlock
The infrastructure bottleneck is a problem of coordination as much as capacity. Building a greener grid requires seamless collaboration between developers, planners, and site engineers.
Slack OS acts as the “front door” for these complex projects. By treating Slack as a work operating system rather than a messaging app, utility companies can create “Project Huddles” where Agentforce agents sit alongside human teams. When a new renewable project applies for connection, an agent can automatically pull data from the Salesforce Energy and Utilities Cloud, summarise technical requirements, and alert the relevant planning team in a dedicated Slack channel.
This eliminates the “context switching” that often delays critical infrastructure decisions. With Salesforce records now deeply integrated into Slack, over 6.4 million records are shared weekly across the platform, allowing engineering teams to approve site designs or update project statuses without ever leaving the conversation (Salesforce UK, 2026).
Bridging the Skills Gap in the Field
The UK water and energy sectors are facing an acute shortage of authorised engineers, a problem that threatens the delivery of the £104 billion investment programme required for the water industry (Bionic, 2026). When experienced staff are stretched thin, the risk of operational errors, such as sewage spills or grid failures, increases significantly.
Agentforce 360 for Field Service transforms how limited human resources are deployed. Instead of dispatchers manually juggling schedules, AI agents use the Atlas reasoning engine to assign technicians based on real-time location, specific skill sets, and job priority.
For on-site technicians, the technology acts as a digital co-pilot. A technician facing a complex repair on an ancient water main can use Agentforce in Slack to query technical manuals, view historical asset data, and even draft close-out notes using voice commands. By automating these administrative burdens, utility companies can effectively increase their “boots on the ground” capacity by 20 per cent or more without increasing headcount, ensuring that the most critical repairs are handled by the right person at the right time.
Restoring Trust through Transparency
In an era of intense public scrutiny regarding water pollution and energy pricing, transparency is the ultimate currency. The 2026 Water Reform Bill has made it clear that “self-monitoring” is no longer an option for utility providers.
Agentic technology provides an immutable audit trail. Every decision made by an agent is grounded in the company’s internal data and knowledge base, ensuring compliance with evolving regulations. In the event of a service failure or environmental incident, Slack OS provides a centralised hub for “case swarming,” where experts can collaborate to resolve the issue while the AI agent provides real-time updates to affected customers and regulators. This proactive communication is essential for rebuilding a reputation that has been damaged by years of perceived opacity.
Conclusion: The Future of Digital Labour
The challenges facing UK energy and utilities are no longer manageable through incremental efficiency gains. The £4.48 billion debt mountain and the gridlock crisis require a fundamental shift in how work is done. At Performa, we have witnessed first-hand how, by deploying Agentic technology like Agentforce and Slack OS, companies are not just buying software; they are onboarding a digital workforce capable of solving complex problems at scale.
This technology allows human employees to move away from the “drudgery” of data entry and manual scheduling, focusing instead on the high-value, empathetic work that a machine cannot do. For the UK utility sector, the choice is clear: embrace agentic technology or risk being left behind in a gridlocked and indebted past.
Book a call with us today to discover how Agentforce can transform your operations.
References
Bionic (2026). What recent energy debt trends tell us about the health of UK businesses. [online] Available at: https://bionic.co.uk/business-energy/guides/billing-payments/what-recent-energy-debt-trends-tell-us-about-the-health-of-uk-businesses/ [Accessed 20 Mar. 2026].
Ofgem (2025). Debt strategy update: supporting the reduction of energy debt. [online] Available at: https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/policy/debt-strategy-update-supporting-reduction-energy-debt [Accessed 20 Mar. 2026].
Salesforce UK (2026). Agentforce for Energy & Utilities. [online] Available at: https://www.salesforce.com/uk/energy-utilities/artificial-intelligence/ [Accessed 20 Mar. 2026].
Salesforce UK (2026). Slack is the work operating system for the agentic enterprise. [online] Available at: https://www.salesforce.com/uk/slack/ [Accessed 20 Mar. 2026].