Tag: Salesforce

TL;DR: The launch of Headless 360 proved that Salesforce is stepping outside the browser to meet teams wherever they work, effectively transforming the platform from a system of record into an invisible system of execution. Yet, the technical freedom of Headless 360 means nothing without advocacy from the humans using it – making end-user adoption the true bottleneck of AI success.

Ultimately, building a high-performing enterprise requires looking past automated deflection and focusing on the human element. As Zahra Bahrololoumi, CEO of Salesforce UK, stated to Michael McIntyre during the final keynote:

“[AI] cannot replace human connection”

True ROI is not achieved by replacing humans, but by deploying autonomous agents with strict guardrails and trained empathy – like the police agent Bobbi – to absorb simple tasks, thereby freeing human teams to focus on the complex, emotionally charged work that requires genuine connection.

***

The team at Performa are still buzzing (and recovering) from a busy World Tour week in London. Sure, every year is different and exciting for the Salesforce ecosystem, but this year is particularly so, as technology is evolving faster than it has since the mid-20th century, an era when we saw huge innovations such as electricity, cars, antibiotics, indoor plumbing, and flight emerge within the space of decades (Cowen, 2011).

If we sum up the evolution of Salesforce from what was discussed at the event, it would be that the tech has transitioned from a platform you simply log into to an invisible execution layer operating beneath the surface across your digital ecosystem. If implemented correctly, it creates a ‘living’ business where automation happens seamlessly, improving experiences and the day-to-day of its customers and team.

The Latest Update: Headless 360.

For years, getting value out of Salesforce meant putting eyes on a Salesforce screen. The biggest architectural announcement of the keynote completely upends that model: Headless 360, aka, Salesforce anywhere you work.

In a traditional CRM, a user must log in to a browser user interface (UI) to perform their activity. By decoupling the CRM UI and exposing Salesforce’s entire data mesh and business logic via APIs and the Model Context Protocol (MCP), Salesforce is shifting from a system of record to a headless system of execution. To put it in layman’s terms, “Headless” typically refers to separating the front-end (what customers see) from the back-end (where data and logic live), so businesses can build custom experiences while still using Salesforce’s engine underneath.

What does this mean for Salesforce customers?

• True Flexibility. Users now have complete freedom over where they surface Salesforce data. If your team lives in Slack, developer terminals, or custom internal portals, Headless 360 brings the information directly to those surfaces.
• Seamless AI Integration. External coding and text agents can now securely tap directly into the 360-degree customer view without complex, custom-built middleware plumbing.

Solving the Data Problem Upstairs

While Headless 360 unlocks incredible technical flexibility, the live World Tour session “Fewer tools, more growth: How to encourage Sales performance” highlighted a glaring truth: if your people don’t use the system, your AI has no data to learn from.

This is a challenge often brought to Performa by our customers or identified in the discovery phases, and we were glad to see it addressed at World Tour. Many organisations are still struggling with data trapped in silos and legacy systems. But even if you unify that data, AI is only as good as the real-time inputs it receives. High performance isn’t a tech problem; it’s an adoption problem!

To solve the adoption gap, the panel mapped out three core strategies that we at Performa leverage in partnership with our customers that put end-users at the heart of the project from day one:

• Involve End Users Early: Don’t build in a vacuum and drop a new system on teams. Bring end-users into the design phase at the start of a project.
• Prioritise Radical User Experience (UX) Simplicity: Make the system as friction-free and easy to use as possible, so that inputting data doesn’t feel like a chore.
• Align Incentives: Build compensation and commission schemes that actively promote and reward the data-sharing behaviours you want to see.

Top Tips: Moving from Agentforce Pilot to Production

The session “Agentforce in the real world: Lessons and Deployment Plans” provided a highly practical blueprint for organisations looking to move past the “proof of concept” phase of Agentforce implementations. Deploying an agent isn’t a single event; it requires a continuous cycle of real-world iteration…

The Sustainable-Scaling Sequence in Summary:

1. Deploy with a Human-in-the-Loop

Phase 1: “Guardian Gate”.

Launch the agent into production, but insert a mandatory human touchpoint

before the agent allows a user to take any major, consequential action.

2. Monitor, Monitor, Monitor

Phase 2: “Observability”.

Vigorously review the agent’s reasoning paths, conversational accuracy, and escalation triggers against real-world user interactions.

3. Remove the Training Wheels

Phase 3: “Autonomy”.

Once the monitoring data proves the agent has earned a high baseline of trust, safely

remove the human touchpoint to unlock full automation.

As an example, a similar sentiment of mindful scaling was echoed by voice AI provider Natterbox. Building effective AI means retraining customer and user habits. Years of dealing with rigid, frustrating Interactive Voice Response (IVR) setups have conditioned people to yell one-word commands like “HUMAN SUPPORT!” into their phones. Because an advanced conversational agent expects context, rather than single keywords, organisations must deploy simple, transactional tasks first (like password resets). This gradually trains the user and/or customer base to trust that they can speak to the AI in natural language and actually get a resolution.

The Real-World Standout: “Bobbi” and Empathy in Action

Easily the most memorable case study of the tour for us came from the public sector. The Thames Valley Police and Hampshire & Isle of Wight Constabulary shared the real-world impact of Bobbi, the UK’s first police AI agent built on Agentforce.

While Bobbi was strictly designed to handle non-emergency inquiries on the 101 system (like lost property or local advice), the deployment team realised a critical truth about human behaviour: if people are in trouble, they will use whatever digital door is open. Because citizens inevitably use the chat function during active emergencies, Bobbi was intentionally designed with emotional understanding.

The agent can detect distress, show digital empathy, and immediately route critical, high-harm cases to human emergency operators.  The true ROI of Bobbi isn’t just about automated deflection; it’s about human optimisation. By automating 45% of everyday, non-emotive tasks, Bobbi removes the “noise,” freeing up human officers to focus their time, empathy, and specialised skills on complex, emotionally charged cases.

Agentforce World Tour 2026 made it clear that success in the agentic era requires a balance of tech and humanity. Winning organisations will be those that use tools like Headless 360 to meet users where they work, build human trust through empathetic design like Bobbi, and support the human teams managing the transformation behind the scenes.

Has any of the latest Salesforce tech piqued your interest? Book a call with our experts today to learn how you can use features such as Headless 360 and Agentforce Voice to win customers, boost productivity and cut costs in your organisation.

References

Chambers, A. (2026) ‘UK’s First Police AI Assistant Handles 200 Chats Per Day’, Technology Magazine, 19 June. Available at: https://technologymagazine.com/news/uks-first-police-ai-assistant-handles-200-chats-per-day [Accessed: 22 June 2026].

Cowen, T. (2011) The Great Stagnation: How America Ate All the Low-Hanging Fruit of Modern History, Got Sick, and Will (Eventually) Feel Better. New York: Dutton.

Ghoshal, A. (2026) ‘Salesforce launches Headless 360 to support agent-first enterprise workflows’, CIO, 16 April. Available at: https://www.cio.com/article/4159536/salesforce-launches-headless-360-to-support-agent-first-enterprise-workflows.html [Accessed: 22 June 2026].

Salesforce (2026) ‘Get to Know Salesforce Headless 360’, Trailhead, April. Available at: https://trailhead.salesforce.com/content/learn/modules/salesforce-headless-360-quick-look/get-to-know-salesforce-headless-360 [Accessed: 22 June 2026].

And why we’re actually not talking about it enough!

TL;DR: Salesforce World Tour London is this week, and we’re calling it now: Agentforce Voice is going to steal the show. But this isn’t just about cutting handle times or killing off awful hold music. From helping a family stranded at the airport at 5 AM to triaging the 8 AM healthcare rush, Voice has the power to tackle real-world human crises. It’s time to think bigger than basic bots cutting costs – we’re talking about a universal shift in how businesses actually help people.

***

We are hearing about it constantly, but I still don’t think we’re actually talking enough about

Voice, because this doesn’t just impact Salesforce users or the Saas ecosystem; it has a universal butterfly effect.

World Tour is coming to London this Thursday, and we have a sneaking (and not very original) suspicion that the dominating focus will be Agentforce Voice. THIS is the product that we have been most excited about at Performa, and as our team has been embarking on the first implementations of this technology, we have started bouncing around more and more ideas on how this can change the landscape of business. And by that, I don’t mean hyperbole about cutting headcounts and doing everything with AI; I mean having the power to actually improve customers’ lives.

Voice is such a massive advancement, and it’s unsurprising that Salesforce is taking the lead in the race to market. This goes beyond the obvious business benefits: cutting down average handle time, personalising service, eliminating awful hold music and frustrating waits for AI bots to buffer for agonising lengths of time. Voice has the capability to not only elevate the customer experience but also prevent harm, safeguard people in urgent situations, and facilitate the resolution of critical emergencies.

What might this look like in the not-too-distant future?

Energy providers can identify and assist vulnerable customers (and actually, all customers) with the right advice at the right time, solving real crises while avoiding compliance fines associated with delay.

Instead of a clunky forms-based nightmare, insurance providers can guide people who have just suffered emergencies and accidents through a claim with speed and clarity, right when they are most distressed.

We all know the hair-tearing situation that is the 8:00am scramble to get a GP appointment when you need antibiotics. Healthcare organisations can use this tech to support ALL patients who need care, effectively triaging the right level of support without the bottleneck.

Calls can be routed with pinpoint accuracy, ensuring emergency services deliver vital care to the right places without a second wasted.

Government bodies in the Public Sector can actually listen to all of their citizens and ease their concerns. By tackling huge volumes of standard cases autonomously, it frees up human teams to be physically out on the ground in the community where they are needed most.

Picture a young family whose plane home was cancelled at the last minute at 5:00 AM. Instead of standing in a 4-hour terminal queue with crying toddlers, they get immediate, empathetic support from their travel agency or airline to reschedule their journey.

When a pipe bursts or a circuit starts sparking, and a houseful of stressed uni students are panicking, they don’t need a FAQ page. They need to get straight on the phone to get instant safety guidance and direction from their utility company or manufacturer.

We say, think bigger than automated renewals and basic product complaints. Think about the global, universal friction points that businesses can finally resolve with this technology.

It’s about accessibility, standard of living, safety, (and sanity!) We’re incredibly excited to hear more on Thursday – and trust us, we won’t be shutting up about it anytime soon!

Keen to learn what Voice and Agentforce can do for your customers (and your business?) book a quick call with one of our experts to find out.

Every business dreams of loyal customers – the ones who stick around, rave about your brand, and keep coming back for more. Unfortunately, reality often looks a little different. Customers drift away, contracts aren’t renewed, and the churn rate creeps higher than you’d like to admit.

High customer churn isn’t just a vanity metric gone wrong. It eats into profits, increases acquisition costs, and makes growth feel like running up an escalator that’s going down. But here’s the silver lining: churn is a solvable problem. And if you’re using Salesforce, you already have one of the most powerful toolkits at your disposal.

Let’s explore why churn happens and four ways Salesforce can help you tackle it head-on.

Why Customers Churn

Before rushing to solutions, it’s worth pausing on the “why.” When it comes to experience, customers usually leave for one of four reasons:

1. Poor onboarding or service experience. They signed up but never felt supported.
2. Lack of engagement. They lost interest in your brand.
3. Competitive offers. A rival swooped in with a shinier deal.
4. Misalignment of value. They didn’t see the ROI they expected from your product or service, whatever the value proposition may be.

The key isn’t to accept churn as inevitable – it’s to treat it like a signal. And Salesforce, when implemented smartly, helps you decode those signals and act before it’s too late.

1. Spot At-Risk Customers with Predictive Analytics

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could see churn coming before it happens? With the right data and Salesforce’s Einstein, you can. Predictive analytics analyses customer behaviour, product usage, and historical data to flag accounts most likely to leave.

Imagine a dashboard that highlights which customers haven’t logged in for weeks, whose support tickets are stacking up, or whose renewal dates are looming without any engagement. That’s your early-warning system.

Actionable tips:

• Using the standard functionality, create an Einstein Prediction Builder model for churn risk. Train it using past customer behaviour, support history, and renewal outcomes.
• Build a churn risk dashboard in Salesforce that shows account managers their top five at-risk customers each week.
• Use automated alerts (via Slack or email) so reps are nudged when a customer hits a danger threshold – say, no engagement 30 days before renewal.
• Equip teams with playbooks: scripted outreach, targeted offers, or fast-tracked support. Prediction is only useful if it triggers action.

2. Supercharge Customer Support with Service Cloud

Few things drive churn faster than poor support. Customers expect fast, personalised responses – especially when something’s broken. If you use Salesforce Service Cloud, you already have the tools to meet that expectation without burning out your support team.

Features like omnichannel routing ensure cases are directed to the right agent, while knowledge bases empower customers to solve problems themselves. AI-driven chatbots can even handle simple queries, freeing up humans for the trickier issues.

Actionable tips:

• Define and enforce Service Level Agreements (SLAs) inside Salesforce. For example, “respond to premium customers within 2 hours.”
• Use Case Escalation Rules so issues that linger too long automatically rise to a manager’s attention.
• Build a customer portal with searchable FAQs and knowledge articles – customers love solving problems without waiting.
• Monitor Customer Effort Score (CES) and track it against churn. The easier the support is, the more likely customers are to stay loyal.

3. Personalise Engagement with Marketing Automation

Sometimes churn isn’t about dissatisfaction – it’s about neglect. Customers who don’t hear from you regularly are ripe for poaching by competitors. Enter Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

These tools let you automate personalised journeys. A customer who hasn’t logged in gets a nudge email. A long-time subscriber gets an exclusive loyalty offer. A lapsed buyer gets reactivation messaging tailored to their past purchases. Instead of one-size-fits-all blasts, customers feel like you’re paying attention.

Actionable tips:

• Segment your customers by lifecycle stage (new, active, at-risk, lapsed) using Salesforce data.
• Create triggered journeys – for example, if a customer hasn’t engaged for 30 days, send a helpful “getting the most out of your product/service” guide.
• Use dynamic content so emails reflect the customer’s industry, purchase history, or support interactions.
• Measure engagement scores over time. Customers who stop opening your emails or attending events may need one-to-one outreach before they churn.

Don’t have the right level of demand to implement Marketing Cloud? With a bit of extra elbow grease, teams can still fight churn using Sales Cloud – here’s how:

• Create a “low-engagement” report that shows accounts with no recent activity or opportunities stalled in late stages. Review it weekly with your team.
• Use Salesforce Tasks to schedule personalised follow-ups for account managers – calls, check-in emails, or invitations to webinars.
• Build dynamic list views of customers approaching renewal dates, so your team can proactively reach out before competitors do.
• Even without strategic automation, a library of well-crafted templates in Sales Cloud ensures consistent, personalised outreach across your team.

4. Close the Feedback Loop with Customer 360

Churn prevention isn’t just about reacting – it’s about listening. Salesforce’s Customer 360 view gives you a holistic profile of each customer, combining sales, service, and marketing data. Layer in tools like Salesforce Surveys or integrations with feedback platforms, and you can capture real insights.

Here’s the magic: when a customer leaves feedback (“too expensive,” “missing features”), you can connect it back to their history. That context makes it actionable. Better yet, by tracking feedback trends across your base, you spot systemic issues before they spiral.

Actionable tips:

• Deploy post-interaction surveys after support cases or product training sessions to capture satisfaction.
• Track Net Promoter Score (NPS) and Customer Satisfaction (CSAT) directly in Salesforce, tying results to account records.
• Use dashboards to identify patterns: e.g., “Customers in Region A consistently flag pricing as a barrier.”
• Close the loop: assign follow-up tasks to account managers when a customer leaves negative feedback. Don’t just collect data – act on it.

The Human Side of Churn

It’s worth noting that Salesforce isn’t a silver bullet. Technology is powerful, but preventing churn also requires a cultural shift. If your teams see retention as “support’s problem” or “marketing’s job,” you’ll keep losing customers. Retention is an everyone problem. Salesforce simply gives you the visibility and automation to coordinate the effort.

High customer churn may be common, but it doesn’t have to be your reality. With Salesforce, you can:

1. Predict who’s at risk before they walk away.
2. Deliver better support that builds trust.
3. Keep customers engaged through personalised journeys.
4. Act on feedback to improve the overall experience.

Tackling churn is less about heroics and more about consistent, proactive action. Salesforce equips you to do exactly that – turning churn from a business headache into an opportunity to build deeper loyalty.

Because at the end of the day, keeping your customers isn’t just cheaper than finding new ones – it’s the foundation of long-term, sustainable growth.

Want to keep your customers for the long haul? Book a call with our experts today and discover how to build the retention strategies that stop churn in its tracks – and keep your business growing.

TL;DR: As big brands pivot to classic guerrilla tactics to capture our dwindling attention spans, a parallel shift is happening in tech. From the supermarket aisles to SaaS platforms, we are perhaps becoming too preoccupied with the how (the shiny tech and the flashy adverts) and losing sight of the why (the real-world social value and human impact). To win over a savvy new generation, brands and tech providers must prove they aren’t just doing things ‘faster’, they are doing them better.

Last week, I was driving past my local Waitrose – the undisputed queen of luxury UK supermarkets – when I actually laughed out loud. Parked brazenly in a layby right outside the entrance was a truck. Not a delivery van, but a mobile billboard equipped with a massive, high-definition OLED monitor. It wasn’t advertising organic hummus; it was flashing a bright, neon-blue-and-white advert for their competitor, Tesco, conveniently situated three minutes down the road. Specifically, it was shouting about their cost-cutting Clubcard Prices.

It was a classic piece of guerrilla marketing: disruptive, cheeky, and intentionally provocative. Think Innocent Smoothies dressing up as giant fruits and handing out free samples at festivals, even back to the famed 1960s Avis advert in the US, simple advertising that read “Avis is only No.2 in rent a cars. So we try harder.” Guerilla marketing isn’t flashy, it isn’t polished – it’s out-of-the-box and more commonly favoured by the up-and-coming and the underdogs due to it’s low cost / high impact ratio.

Seeing the UK’s biggest supermarket “ambush” its posh rival in such a low-fi way almost felt like a glitch in the matrix. I might also be a little biased, because I love a bit of guerilla marketing done well, but as I reflected on it later, while watching a series on Amazon Prime, I realised this wasn’t a case of a marketing manager gone rogue. Even the adverts on Prime – which I refuse to pay to remove on principle, given the existing subscription fee – were surprisingly… good? They were (mostly) creative, quirky, pattern interrupting, and I didn’t pick up my phone to avoid watching them.

There seems to be a shift occurring. Big brands understand that customers are no longer content with polished, passive TV spots and perfectly curated video. They are being forced to work harder, think faster, and act more human. From the streets of Bristol to the ads on streaming services, the era of generic corporate messaging is dead.

The Rise of the Latest Savvy (Sober) Spender

For years, Gen Z has been written off as a generation with the attention span of a goldfish and a penchant for e-cigarettes. The reality is far more nuanced. While our attention spans may be shorter due to an era of digital convenience, we have become ruthlessly selective about where we “spend” that attention.

At a recent event, a group of colleagues and I were swapping stories about our families. We were genuinely stunned to learn that the stereotypical teenage weekend has undergone a radical transformation. Gone are the days of teenagers drinking cheap cider in damp fields or spending their Sundays “rotting” on the sofa. Instead, they are at the gym, obsessing over their health and swapping recommendations for macronutrients, protein powders, and electrolytes. They care about ultra-processed foods (UPFs) and would rather eat products with whole ingredients.

This is a whole new generation of consumer. This is a generation of savvy spenders. They value ‘real’ content, ‘real’ food, thrifting over fast fashion, and they demand brands with a genuine story and a clear purpose. We have pivoted from the demand for instant gratification to one of uniqueness and value, as instant gratification has become the commodity. For example, according to research by First Insight, the majority of Gen Z shoppers prefer to buy from sustainable brands and are willing to spend more on products they perceive as ethically manufactured (First Insight, 2021). They aren’t just buying a product; they are buying into a value system, one that impacts their own social currency.

Just last week, I was speaking to the founder of a successful B2B videography company. He said that his team have been taken aback recently by the volume of companies rejecting edits that look ‘too good’. He’s been asked to completely alter his approach, making it less polished.

“Could you record it on your phone? It’s still too steady, maybe just hold it for that POV feel.”

Similarly, my wedding photographer said there has been a sizmic shift toward couples asking for ‘disposable-style’, candid, imperfect shots. This consumer feedback is so interesting and serves as an excellent reminder that we need to bring our strategies back down to earth, as businesses are chomping at the bit to use AI. Consumers now prefer reality over perfection.

In the SaaS world, we often talk about “AI inertia” – the hesitation within procurement and IT departments to pull the trigger on new tech because of the sheer noise in the market. However, this inertia is spreading. Consumers are no longer wowed by the mere presence of “AI-powered” features, and what’s more they are fast becoming able to spot it from a mile away. We are seeing a “so what?” filter being applied to every new launch.

Take Agentforce, for example. In a business context, customers are no longer impressed by generic chatbots or automated email templates. They are demanding proof of concept and real-world social value. They want to know: How does this actually solve a problem? This mirrors the consumer world. We don’t want faster; we want better. The Tesco truck outside Waitrose worked because it understood the “cost-of-living crisis” context perfectly – it was a real-world use case of price transparency delivered with a wink.

What’s My Point Here? The Blue-Sky Potential of Purposeful Tech

To break through this inertia, both brands and tech providers need to stop thinking about incremental gains and start looking at the big picture. Blue-sky thinking is often dismissed as idealistic, but in an age of cynicism, it is the only thing that resonates.

If we apply the same level of ingenuity seen in guerrilla marketing to our most pressing social issues, the potential is staggering. Successful AI implementations shouldn’t just be about decreasing service times and increasing conversions. They should be about:

• Using precise technology to support patients and allieviate strain on our healthcare system.
• Personalising AI tutors that close the attainment gap for underprivileged students.
• Streamlining bureaucracy so effectively that local councils can reinvest millions back into community spaces.
• Making the day-to-day lives of everyone in society just that little bit easier (and better!)

The ultimate goal of this technological evolution should be human time. If AI agents can handle the “drudgery” of administrative tasks, we move closer to the viability of a four-day working week. This isn’t just a “phase” or “hype”; it’s the pursuit of a society where people have more time to actually live their lives, rather than just manage them.

Authenticity is Becoming Currency

Whether it’s a truck parked in a layby or an AI agent managing a complex global supply chain, the demand from the modern consumer is the same: I don’t care about the hype, just show me the value.

The move towards guerrilla tactics by big brands is a symptom of a larger truth: the “generic” is dead. In an era where we can skip, block, or ignore almost anything, brands must be bold enough to be interrupted and smart enough to be useful. We are no longer passive recipients of advertising; we are active curators of our own lives.

Big brands have realised that to catch a savvy spender’s eye, they need to step off the screens and into the real world. They need to prove they aren’t just a logo, but a participant in the cultural conversation. The “and what?” generation is watching – and they are remarkably hard to impress.

Ready to stop chasing the hype and start building the proof of concept? Book a call with our experts to design agentic solutions that resonate with the modern, purpose-driven consumer

Read more on how the path to purchase is changing here.

References

• First Insight (2021). The State of Consumer Spending: Gen Z Shoppers Demand Sustainable Retail. [online] First Insight. Available at: https://www.firstinsight.com [Accessed 15 April 2026].
• Haimari, F. (2023). The Death of Generic Marketing: Why Personalization is No Longer Enough. Journal of Digital Strategy, 12(4), pp.145-158.
• Salesforce (2024). Agentforce: The Shift from Copilots to Autonomous Agents. [online] Salesforce News. Available at: https://www.salesforce.com/news [Accessed 15 April 2026].

Vizard, S. (2023). Why Big Brands are Turning to Guerrilla Tactics to Cut Through the Noise. Marketing Week. [online] Available at:https://www.marketingweek.com [Accessed 15 April 2026].

TL;DR: Some in the Salesforce ecosystem are wondering, “Is MuleSoft playing hide and seek?” as the branding takes a backseat to the Agentforce hype. The reality is that MuleSoft hasn’t disappeared; it has gone under the hood – evolved into the “Agent Fabric” – the essential infrastructure that allows autonomous AI agents to actually execute tasks. While Agentforce and Reasoning Engine, Atlas, provide the “brain,” MuleSoft provides the “limbs,” connecting AI to legacy data and external systems via governed APIs. Without this integration layer, an agentic enterprise is just a collection of smart chatbots that cannot actually move data or trigger real-world business actions.

We saw the buzz surrounding MuleSoft seemingly reach a fever pitch just before the Agentforce storm dominated the Salesforce ecosystem. To the casual observer, it might have appeared that promo of the integration giant was being sidelined by the new era of autonomous AI agents. However, the reality is the opposite. MuleSoft has not been replaced; it has been repositioned as the central nervous system of the “agentic enterprise”. Without the connectivity and governance MuleSoft provides to established tech stacks, Agentforce might be little more than a brain without limbs, capable of thinking but unable to act upon the world.

The Evolution from Integration to Orchestration

For years, MuleSoft was defined by its API-led connectivity. It was the tool used to bridge the gap between legacy systems like SAP or Oracle and modern cloud platforms. An organisation might use Salesforce for sales and service, Xero for accounting, Mailchimp for email marketing, Shopify for transactions, Shipmate for parcel tracking – they need a way for these systems to interact and speak the same language. Enter MuleSoft.

When Salesforce introduced Agentforce – a suite of autonomous AI agents capable of handling tasks across all business functions – the focus shifted from “how do we move data?” to “how does an agent take action?”.

For an AI agent to be truly useful, it must do more than answer questions; it must execute business processes. It needs to check inventory, process a refund, or update a shipping schedule in an external warehouse management system (WMS). MuleSoft provides the “Agent Fabric” – a governed layer of APIs that allows these agents to “reach out” of the Salesforce platform and interact with any other system in the enterprise.

Why MuleSoft is Essential for Agentic Enterprises

An agentic enterprise is an organisation where autonomous agents handle complex, multi-step workflows with minimal human intervention. This requires three things that MuleSoft is uniquely positioned to deliver:

• Unified Context: Agents need a single, real-time view of the customer. MuleSoft federates data from disparate silos and complex orgs – billing, ERP, and legacy databases – ensuring the agent has the full story before it makes a decision.
• Actionable Tooling: Through the Model Context Protocol (MCP), MuleSoft allows developers to turn existing integrations into “tools” that agents can discover and use. An API that was originally built for a mobile app can now be used by an AI agent to verify a warranty or reset a password.
• Governance and Guardrails: Giving an AI the power to execute transactions carries risk. MuleSoft’s API Manager provides additional security layers, such as rate limiting and PII detection, ensuring that agents operate within strict corporate policies.

Industry Use Cases: Stories of the Agentic Shift

The Retailer and the Supply Chain Crisis

Consider a fictionalised Fortune 500 retailer. Before the rise of agentic AI, their customer service team was overwhelmed during peak seasons. When a shipment was delayed, customers called in, and agents had to manually check three different systems: the order management system (OMS), the logistics partner’s portal, and the warehouse database.

By implementing Agentforce fed by MuleSoft, the retailer created a “Logistics Agent”. When a customer asks about a delay, the agent uses a MuleSoft-powered API to fetch real-time data from the carrier’s system. If the item is stuck, the agent doesn’t just report the news; it uses another MuleSoft “action” to trigger a proactive discount in the billing system and schedule a new delivery in the WMS. The integration layer turned a passive information-fetcher into an active problem-solver.

The Financial Institution and Open Banking

A leading European bank faced the challenge of “agentic fraud”. As they opened their systems to third-party providers via Open Banking, the volume of automated transactions spiked. They used MuleSoft to build a “Fraud Oversight Agent”.

This agent monitors API traffic in real time. When it detects an unusual pattern – perhaps an agentic script attempting to move funds across multiple accounts – it doesn’t just flag it. It uses MuleSoft’s orchestration capabilities to instantly freeze the specific API key and initiate a “Step-up Authentication” protocol, protecting the bank’s assets without human intervention.

Different Organisations, Unique Challenges

So, in the ‘Agentic Era’, what types of businesses are benefitting from MuleSoft?

Organisation Type

Primary Challenge

MuleSoft/Agentforce Benefit

Legacy-Heavy (e.g. Manufacturing)

Data trapped in on-premise systems with no modern interface.

MuleSoft creates “System APIs” that wrap legacy data in a format that AI agents can understand.

Highly Regulated (e.g. Healthcare)

Strict compliance (GDPR, HIPAA) prevents AI from accessing sensitive data.

MuleSoft’s governance layer masks PII before it ever reaches the AI model’s “brain”.

Fast-Growing Scale-ups

Brick wall silos caused by adopting too many tools. Applications built up over time in legacy systems or implemented too quickly in fast-growing orgs.

MuleSoft acts as a universal adapter, allowing new agents to be deployed across the entire tech stack in days.

The “Agentforce storm” did not blow MuleSoft away; it cleared the air to show exactly why a robust integration strategy is the only way to scale AI for organisations utilising many different platforms. As we move further into 2026, the enterprises that succeed will not be those with the smartest AI models, but those with the most “connected” ones. MuleSoft is no longer just about connecting apps; it is about empowering the next generation of digital workers to act with the full weight and intelligence of the entire enterprise behind them.

Don’t let your AI get stranded in a data silo. Bridge the gap between intelligence and action by making MuleSoft the backbone of your Agentforce strategy. Reach out today to turn your APIs into agentic tools.

References

Ksolves. (2026). Future of Mulesoft: Integration Trends to Watch in 2026. [online] Available at: https://www.ksolves.com/blog/salesforce/mulesoft-integration-trends [Accessed 15 Apr. 2026].

Polyakov, G. (2025). From APIs to AI: The New Integration Frontier. Psyncopate Technologies. [online] Available at: https://www.psyncopate.com/insight/ai-use-cases-with-mulesoft [Accessed 15 Apr. 2026].

RSM Technology. (2025). Building the Agentic Enterprise with MuleSoft: Dreamforce 2025 Recap. [online] Available at: https://technologyblog.rsmus.com/technologies/salesforce/building-the-agentic-enterprise-with-mulesoft-dreamforce-2025-recap/ [Accessed 15 Apr. 2026].

Salesforce. (2025). Architecting the Agentic Enterprise with MuleSoft. Salesforce Architects. [online] Available at: https://architect.salesforce.com/docs/architect/fundamentals/guide/mulesoft-architecting-agentic-enterprise [Accessed 15 Apr. 2026].

Scorch Agency. (2025). MuleSoft for Agentforce: Unleashing Greater Productivity. [online] Available at: https://www.scorchagency.com/wp-content/uploads/MuleSoft-For-Agentforce.pdf [Accessed 15 Apr. 2026].

Hazards businesses might miss before it’s too late.

TL;DR The meteoric rise of generative AI has often been described as a “gold rush,” but for many modern enterprises, AI is a “black ice” risk – transparent, hard to detect, and capable of sending a company into a reputational skid before they realise they’ve lost traction. While tools like Salesforce’s Einstein Trust Layer offer “traction control” by masking data and enforcing zero-retention policies, technical safeguards are not a cure-all.

The danger lies in Shadow AI, where employees bypass secure systems to use public, unsanctioned LLMs, inadvertently feeding proprietary data into public training sets. Combined with the staggering environmental costs (huge water and energy consumption) and a 95% failure rate for unguided AI pilots, the financial stakes are massive. To stay on the road, businesses must pair secure software with rigorous employee training and a commitment to Responsible AI.

***

In the physical world, verglas, also widely referred to as black ice, is a thin, transparent coating of glazed ice on a surface. It is notoriously difficult to see, often appearing as nothing more than a harmless wet patch until a vehicle’s tires lose grip. By the time the driver realises the danger, the car is already spinning out of control. For businesses in 2026, AI presents a comparable hazard. It promises a smooth, fast journey toward productivity, but beneath that polished surface lie invisible patches of “Shadow AI,” data leakage, and environmental costs that can send an entire organisation into a financial and reputational skid.

The Invisible Threat: Shadow AI

The most dangerous patch of black ice is Shadow AI – the unsanctioned use of AI tools by employees without the knowledge or oversight of the IT department.

While leadership may be debating official AI strategies in the boardroom, the workforce has already moved ahead. According to a 2025 KPMG global survey, up to 58% of employees use AI productivity tools daily, yet only 41% of organisations have a formal policy guiding that use (Espria, 2025). A concerning and undeniable governance gap.

When an analyst uploads a sensitive quarterly earnings report to a free, public Large Language Model (LLM) to “summarise the key trends,” they aren’t just saving time – they are potentially feeding proprietary corporate data into a public training pool. Without a protected license or “Enterprise” tier agreement, many LLM providers reserve the right to use prompt data to train future iterations of their models. Once that data is ingested, it is effectively public; it can reappear in the outputs of a competitor’s query months later. In this scenario, the business has lost its “grip” on its most valuable asset – its data.

Good News for Salesforce Users

For organisations already operating within the Salesforce ecosystem, there is a significant safety measure: the Einstein Trust Layer. The good news for Salesforce users is that this built-in governance framework acts as a sophisticated buffer between corporate data and generative models. By utilising dynamic data masking, the Trust Layer strips away personally identifiable information (PII) and sensitive records before they ever reach an external LLM, replacing them with anonymised placeholders.

Furthermore, Salesforce’s “zero-retention” policy ensures that no data shared through the platform is stored or used by third-party providers to train their public models. However, this technical safety net only extends as far as the Salesforce platform. The persistent danger remains that employees, if not rigorously trained on AI best practices, may still copy-paste that same sensitive data into consumer-grade LLMs or unsanctioned browser extensions outside of the Salesforce environment. Without a culture of “AI Literacy,” the security of the Trust Layer can be easily bypassed by a single well-intentioned but uninformed employee looking for a shortcut.

The Environmental and Financial Toll

The “black ice” metaphor extends beyond data privacy to the hidden costs of AI infrastructure. At high-level tech events, the conversation often centres on “efficiency” and “innovation,” but the physical reality of AI is resource-heavy and carbon-intensive.

A single exchange with an LLM can consume roughly 0.26 mL of water for cooling (Online Learning Consortium, 2025). While this seems negligible, at the scale of billions of monthly queries, the impact is staggering. Microsoft and Google reported year-on-year water consumption increases of 34% and 20% respectively as they expanded their AI-ready data centers (GOV.UK, 2025). AI servers are also projected to triple their energy demand by 2028, potentially consuming enough electricity to power 28 million homes (GOV.UK, 2025).

For businesses, these aren’t just ethical concerns; they are financial ones. Governments are increasingly mandating transparent environmental reporting. Companies that ignore the “green” cost of their AI implementations today may find themselves hitting a wall of carbon taxes and regulatory fines tomorrow.

Furthermore, the financial “spin-out” from failed AI projects is already a reality. Recent data indicates that 70% to 95% of all AI pilots fail to reach full production (Medium, 2026). These failures aren’t just lost time – they represent billions in “economic vandalism.” In 2025 alone, American companies spent an estimated $644 billion on AI deployments, many of which were abandoned due to poor data quality or escalating “token” costs that were not budgeted for (Medium, 2026; Unosquare, 2026).

How to Gain Traction: Responsible AI

To navigate the black ice, businesses must shift from a “move fast and break things” mindset to one of Responsible AI. This isn’t just a buzzword; it is the winter tires and traction control of the digital age.

Responsible AI frameworks prioritise three pillars: Realisation, Reputation, and Regulation (EY, 2025).

1. Data Sovereignty: Ensuring that every AI tool used – official or otherwise – operates under a protected license where data is masked and never used for external model training.
2. Algorithmic Transparency: Moving away from “black box” systems toward models that offer explainability, ensuring that decisions (like hiring or credit scoring) are not biased or discriminatory.
3. Governance by Design: Implementing “AI Gateways” that log all prompts and responses, providing the audit trail necessary to defend business decisions in court or during a regulatory audit.

The dangers of AI for businesses are rarely spectacular explosions; they are quiet, frictionless slips. Shadow AI, unprotected data sharing, and ignored environmental footprints are the patches of black ice that catch even the most sophisticated companies off guard. To survive the transition into an AI-driven economy, businesses must look past the shiny exterior of the technology and invest in the governance structures that keep them on the road.

Need help implementing responsible AI and avoiding the pitfalls that might send your data spiralling out of control? Book a call with our team to learn how we get results – the right way.

References

Espria (2025) Shadow AI: Executive Briefing on Real Risks, Business Impact and Mitigation. Available at: https://www.espria.com/resources/shadow-ai-executive-briefing-on-real-risks-business-impact-and-mitigation/ (Accessed: 30 March 2026).

EY (2025) The business case for responsible AI. Available at: https://www.ey.com/en_us/insights/ai/the-business-case-for-responsible-ai (Accessed: 30 March 2026).

GOV.UK (2025) Report: Water use in AI and Data Centres Executive summary. Available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/688cb407dc6688ed50878367/Water_use_in_data_centre_and_AI_report.pdf (Accessed: 30 March 2026).

Medium (2026) How the AI Industry Created $644 Billion of Economic Vandalism in 2025. Available at: https://skooloflife.medium.com/how-the-ai-industry-created-644-billion-of-economic-vandalism-in-2025-1ca0d71ab6f2 (Accessed: 30 March 2026).

Online Learning Consortium (2025) The Real Environmental Footprint of Generative AI: What 2025 Data Tell Us. Available at: https://onlinelearningconsortium.org/olc-insights/2025/12/the-real-environmental-footprint-of-generative-ai/ (Accessed: 30 March 2026).

Unosquare (2026) AI Implementation Mistakes That Cost Millions | Avoid These Errors. Available at: https://www.unosquare.com/blog/ai-development-mistakes-that-cost-companies-millions-and-how-to-avoid-them/ (Accessed: 30 March 2026).

TL;DR: As of the Spring ‘26 release, Agentforce Voice has moved from pilot to General Availability (GA), transforming from a simple chatbot with a voice to a fully autonomous, reasoning-capable agent. Powered by the Atlas Reasoning Engine, it can now execute complex tasks (like processing returns or scheduling technicians) without human intervention.

Now GA: Native integration into Service and Sales Cloud, low-code “Canvas” builders for voice logic, and ultra-low latency for natural, real-time conversation.

Coming Soon: An Agent Marketplace for industry-specific voice templates and voice-activated Slackbot agents for internal productivity.

Who Wins: High-volume service centres (scalability), B2B sales teams (automated logging), and regulated industries (secure, AI-governed interactions).

***

The landscape of customer engagement has shifted from passive assistance to autonomous action. Salesforce has formally moved beyond the era of “Copilots” to the era of the Agentic Enterprise. At the heart of this shift is Agentforce Voice, a solution that finally bridges the gap between traditional telephony and autonomous AI.

This article outlines the current state of Agentforce Voice in Spring 2026, what has reached General Availability (GA), and the roadmap for the remainder of the year.

The State of Agentforce Voice: Spring 2026

In the Spring ‘26 release cycle, Salesforce has completed a massive rebranding and architectural overhaul. The most notable change is the evolution of Service Cloud into Agentforce Service and Sales Cloud into Agentforce Sales. Voice is no longer an “add-on” feature; it is a native, intelligent layer integrated into the core of these platforms.

What is General Availability (GA) Now?

As of the February 2026 production rollouts, several key voice capabilities are now GA for all enterprise customers:

• Omni-Channel Autonomous Voice Agents: Unlike previous IVRs (Interactive Voice Response systems) that relied on rigid decision trees, Agentforce Voice agents now use the Atlas Reasoning Engine. Digital Agents can understand natural language, interpret intent and nuance, and execute multi-step tasks – such as qualifying and processing a return or scheduling a field service technician – entirely through voice interaction without human intervention from the organisation.

The result? Consumers must no longer endure waiting in queues, repeating their queries to several agents, and listening to mind-numbing hold music, whilst service teams are free to focus on complex cases – even during seasonal surges!.

• Unified Agentforce Builder (Canvas View): Admins can now build voice-enabled agents using the same low-code builder used for chat and messaging. The new Canvas View allows for the visualisation of branching logic, enabling teams to “drag and drop” voice actions that are grounded in the same Data Cloud and Knowledge libraries as their digital agents. This makes it easier than ever for users to create and manage their digital employees.
• Native Einstein Conversation Insights (ECI) Storage: A major milestone in Spring ‘26 is that ECI data is now stored natively on the Salesforce platform. This eliminates external data silos and allows voice call summaries to trigger Salesforce Flows or Apex actions instantly upon the conclusion of a call.
• Ultra-Low Latency Interaction: This sounds extremely technical, but in simple terms, to prevent the annoying “robotic pause” common in older AI voice systems, Salesforce has optimised the voice stack for near-instant response times, supporting natural interruptions and clarifications – just like a human conversation.

What is to Come: The 2026 Roadmap

Salesforce has signalled a “Summer of Autonomy” with several features currently in pilot or slated for late 2026:

• Agent Marketplaces: Later this year, Salesforce is expected to launch a dedicated section of the AppExchange for pre-built AI agents. This will allow companies to download industry-specific voice agents (e.g., a “Healthcare Billing Agent” or “Retail Returns Specialist”) that come pre-configured with relevant compliance and logic.
• Personalised Slackbot Agents: Currently in pilot for early 2026, Salesforce is moving toward “personal agents” in Slack that can join voice huddles, summarise action items, and update CRM records via voice commands in real-time.
• Advanced Multi-Lingual Nuance: Future updates are focused on expanding “Emotional Intelligence” markers, allowing voice agents to better detect frustration or urgency and initiate an Intelligent Human Handoff with the full transcript and sentiment analysis provided to the live agent.

Who Benefits Most from Agentforce Voice?

The move toward autonomous voice is not just a tech upgrade; it is a strategic shift for specific types of organisations.

1. High-Volume Service Centres (E.g. Retail & Utilities)

Companies dealing with seasonal spikes or high volumes of routine inquiries (e.g., “Where is my order?” or “How do I pay my bill?”) benefit from 24/7 availability. Agentforce Voice allows these companies to scale support without increasing headcount, maintaining a consistent brand voice across every call.

2. Complex B2B Sales Organisations

For sales teams, the integration of voice into Agentforce Sales is transformative. Sales reps no longer need to manually log notes. The system captures the “structured intelligence” of a call, scores the lead against the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP), and automatically creates follow-up tasks. This is particularly valuable for companies with long sales cycles where context is easily lost.

3. Regulated Industries (E.g. Healthcare & Finance)

With the launch of My Trust Centre, Salesforce has provided a tailored view of security and compliance. Organisations in regulated sectors can now deploy voice agents with the confidence that every interaction is governed by the Einstein Trust Layer, ensuring data privacy and biometric security throughout voice authentication.

From Talking to Doing

As of 2026, the “portal-to-ticket” era is effectively over. Agentforce Voice has turned the phone channel – historically a high-cost silo – into a proactive, data-rich asset. By grounding voice interactions in real-time CRM data, businesses are no longer just answering questions; they are completing “jobs to be done” at the speed of conversation.

Is Voice functionality piquing your interest? Book a call with our experts today to find out how you could cut costs, win customers and deliver stellar service with Salesforce.

References

Cloud Analogy (2026) Salesforce Agentforce Trends 2026: The Future of AI-Powered CRM. Available at: https://blog.cloudanalogy.com/salesforce-agentforce-trends-2026-the-future-of-ai-powered-crm/ (Accessed: 1 April 2026).

Codleo (2026) Complete Guide to Salesforce Spring ’26 Release & Agentforce Transformation. Available at: https://www.codleo.com/blog/salesforce-spring-26-release (Accessed: 1 April 2026).

Grazitti Interactive (2026) All About Salesforce Agentforce Voice. Available at: https://www.grazitti.com/blog/turn-customer-conversations-into-trusted-experiences-with-salesforce-agentforce-voice/ (Accessed: 1 April 2026).

Marmato Digital (2025) Agentforce Voice: Deliver Conversational AI Voice Support at Scale. Available at: https://marmatodigital.com/agentforce-voice/ (Accessed: 1 April 2026).

Peergenics (2026) Agentforce Trends for 2026 and Beyond. Available at: https://www.peergenics.com/post/agentforce-trends-for-2026-and-beyond (Accessed: 1 April 2026).

Salesforce (2026) Salesforce Targets the ITSM Status Quo: 180 Organizations Replace Legacy Support Tools with Agentforce IT Service. Available at: https://www.salesforce.com/news/press-releases/2026/02/26/agentforce-it-service-selected-for-itsm/ (Accessed: 1 April 2026).

Salesforce Monday (2026) Agentforce in 2026: What’s New in Salesforce’s Agentic AI Platform. Available at: https://salesforcemonday.com/2026/01/29/agentforce-january-2026-updates-features/ (Accessed: 1 April 2026).

TechForce Services (2026) Salesforce Spring ’26 Release Notes & Agentforce Updates. Available at: https://www.techforceservices.com/blog/salesforce-spring-26-release-guide/ (Accessed: 1 April 2026).

As businesses and marketers, we’ve spent the last few years obsessed with the “how” of Artificial Intelligence – how it can streamline our workflows, how it can cut costs, and how it can help us make more money. But we’ve been so preoccupied with the fear of being ‘left behind’ in this new era that we have spent far too little time asking about the “who.” Who are we actually using this technology for, and do they actually care about our newfound obsession with generative tools? The answer, as I found out from real, everyday consumers this week, is ‘yes’.

We need to stop underestimating the modern consumer. They are becoming more AI-savvy by the day, and their eye for generated content is sharper than we think. A quote in the recent Canva ‘State of Marketing and AI Report, 2026’ really stood out to me and sums it up well:

“AI investment and optimism are accelerating faster than consumer trust.”

This is something I witnessed myself in real time, and it very much got me thinking about how often we consider the consumer amidst all the benefits AI can bring to our organisations. Just yesterday, while scrolling through social media, an UpCircle advert caught my eye. If you aren’t familiar, they are a popular natural beauty brand known for their coffee-based, ‘upcycled’ skincare and ethical ethos.

However, it wasn’t the product that grabbed my attention in the midst of my doom-scroll – it was the comment section. Comments like “Stop using AI slop in your ads” and “I’ve already seen three AI-generated ads from you today” dominated the thread. Consumers weren’t just scrolling on by; they were pausing to express genuine disappointment. Intrigued, I expanded the comment section.

To their credit, UpCircle was present in the comments, responding gracefully. They explained that, as a small team, they are using AI to amplify their brand and compete with the industry giants. And honestly? In my opinion, they should. In 2026, it is becoming nearly impossible to remain competitive without these tools.

But it’s not about if we use it; it’s about how we use them.

Mission VS Machine

What struck me most was the level of awareness from everyday consumers. As a marketer at a Salesforce consultancy, my exposure to the world of AI is likely much broader than that of my fellow consumers, so I almost felt pride in their astute criticism and their demand for better treatment as brand patrons. They weren’t just annoyed by the aesthetics; they were frustrated by the perceived hypocrisy. They questioned how a company built on wellness, ethics, and sustainability could lean so heavily into high-scale AI generation.

When I visited UpCircle’s website, their mission was clear: “Better for you, better for the world.” Now, UpCircle is a BCorp, and have been since 2022, they clearly care about their community and the environmental impact of their activity. Of course they do, that’s how they built their brand in the first place. But we can’t forget that this is indeed a brand, a business. And a business must be efficient; it must survive. This deep dive into my social media on a Monday night really got me thinking about the balance and the use of AI for good. And without spending hours researching, what do I know? UpCircle may completely offset the environmental footprint made by their use of AI. In fact, as a company currently in the process of BCorp certification – I can tell you that this is essentially a requirement.

I’m not judging a small business for using AI – I use it myself, how could I? I work for a company that develops it! But the purpose of writing this isn’t about UpCircle. They are simply doing what every business is doing: trying to survive. And I’ll bet that, as a small BCorp, they are probably doing a lot more than most businesses to negate the environmental impact of their AI use. A quick scroll on their social media pages unearths thoughtful, environmentally conscious, REAL content. They have simply decided to use an LLM to speed up their ad creation.

So, no, this isn’t a criticism of a beauty brand. In fact, they actually appear to be using AI responsibly. I was simply inspired by this comments section to really think about the modern consumer. Yes, there are the people that fall for videos of dogs nursing injured bunnies back to health, or more seriously the slew of AI scams that are popping up at an alarming rate, but the average consumer is much more awake than businesses may think. They are rejecting AI ‘slop’, swiping up on generated content, turning up their noses at unhelpful digital agents.

The damage here isn’t just bad ad performance; it’s the erosion of customer loyalty. When a brand known for “natural” and “human” values pivots to “synthetic” and “automated,” the cognitive dissonance (discomfort caused by contradiction) for the consumer is jarring. If we use AI to free up time in our day-to-day operations, we must have a plan for that time. We shouldn’t use it just to produce more noise; we should use that conserved energy to pour back into the consumer experience.

The brands that will succeed in this era of technology are not the ones that automate the most. They are the ones who use automation to be more human and serve our fellow humans better. We must do right by our audience. Because at the end of the day, if we lose their trust in the pursuit of efficiency, we’ve lost the very thing that makes a brand worth building in the first place.

The brands that keep their customer, and subsequently humans, at the centre are the ones that will win the AI race, and not the other way around.

Lauren Tovey – Marketing Manager – Performa

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].

TL;DR 82% of constituents feel ignored by government digital services, largely because many departments are still running on 50-year-old legacy systems. This technical debt wastes roughly 30.6 million hours a week in the UK alone.

The Solution: Moving away from “siloed” tech to a Single Source of Truth. By using Slack as an Agentic Operating System, PubSec teams can use a conversational, mobile-friendly interface to manage everything from HR to IT without needing to raise constant support tickets.

The “Agent” Advantage: We leverage Agentforce technology to:

• Triage Case Work: Like identifying and scheduling pothole repairs via photo analysis and GPS.
• Manage Grants: Slashing processing times from months to weeks by automatically pulling data from multiple charities and trusts.
• Streamline Hiring: Using AI to surface the best candidates from thousands of applications, saving hundreds of hours for HR teams.

The Future: With only a small fraction of government entities currently on Salesforce, we expect a massive migration toward these AI-driven, “Agentic” models to meet modern constituent expectations.

The divide between public expectation and digital reality has reached a breaking point. According to the Salesforce Connected Government Report, a staggering 82% of constituents feel that their government does not prioritise the customer experience (Salesforce, 2024). While the private sector has spent the last decade perfecting frictionless, “one-click” interactions, the public sector (PubSec) is often found wading through a quagmire of legacy infrastructure.

In some departments, the core technology in use is often, let’s be honest, not shockingly over 50 years old. These “green-screen” systems and siloed databases do more than just slow down internal operations; they create a fundamental disconnect between the state and the citizen. When technology is this archaic, data stays trapped in departmental vacuums, leading to repetitive paperwork, long waiting times, and a general sense of frustration. To fix the experience for the constituent, we must first fix the operating system of the government.

What is Missing from PubSec?

The missing ingredient in modern public service is not just “new tech,” but connectivity. While connectivity is often dismissed as a corporate buzzword, in a PubSec context, it refers to the tangible benefits of an integrated “single source of truth.” When systems do not talk to one another, the cost is felt by everyone: the exhausted front-line team, the frustrated user, and the wider organisation struggling with budget cuts.

The scale of this inefficiency is quantifiable. It is estimated that 30.6 million hours a week are wasted across the UK public sector workforce due to systemic inefficiencies (Civil Service World, 2024). These hours are lost to manual data entry, “swivel-chairing” between incompatible software, and creating workarounds for legacy workflows that were never designed for the digital age.

Historically, government departments have attempted to bridge these gaps with rigid, monolithic Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems. However, these often become “digital concrete” – hard to change, expensive to maintain, and requiring a formal IT support ticket for even the smallest adjustment. What PubSec truly needs is a secure, flexible operating system that empowers staff rather than hindering them.

The New Slack OS: The Command Centre for PubSec

The evolution of Slack from a messaging app to a comprehensive “Operating System” (OS) enhanced by Slack AI is a game-changer for the public sector. As Steve Hamrick, VP of Product Management at Salesforce, describes it, the goal is to make work “fast, easy and delightful” (Salesforce, 2025).

For a government worker, the Slack OS provides:

• Universal Accessibility: The ability to move seamlessly between mobile and desktop ensures that field workers, such as social workers or building inspectors, stay connected to the hub.
• Low-Code/No-Code Agility: Teams can build their own workflows. You no longer need to wait six months for a developer to automate a simple approval process.
• A Conversational Interface: Rather than navigating complex menus, users can simply ask Slack AI to find a policy document or summarise a long thread of case notes.

Slack is now being positioned as the “command centre” for Salesforce. By integrating these platforms, PubSec organisations can finally move away from fragmented tools and into a unified environment where all apps are connected in one conversational interface.

Expanding the Salesforce Ecosystem in Public Service

Salesforce has spent years refining a suite of products specifically tailored for the unique pressures of the public sector. This timeline of innovation has moved beyond simple CRM to include:

• Experience Cloud: Providing external engagement portals for citizens to track their own applications.
• Grant and Benefits Management: Streamlining the disbursement of vital funds.
• Public Health and Case Management: Ensuring vulnerable individuals do not fall through the cracks of a disjointed system.
• Facilities Ops and Licensing: Managing the physical and legal infrastructure of our cities with specialised AI for every task.

The Rise of the Agentic Organisation

The next frontier is the Agentic Organisation. This moves beyond simple automation to use “Agentforce” – autonomous digital agents capable of reasoning and executing complex tasks. At Performa, for example, we have developed specific accelerators for digital agents that are already transforming key service areas.For PubSec, these look like:

1. Case Triage: Road Maintenance

The state of UK roads is a frequent point of national contention; one might say our tarmac is crying out for a digital intervention. Imagine a constituent reporting a pothole. Instead of a static form, a Highway Agent engages them via Slack or a mobile portal:

• The Agent asks for a photograph and uses GPS coordinates to pinpoint the location.
• The reasoning engine analyses the image, comparing the pothole to the road’s centre lines to estimate size and depth.
• It then triages the report, automatically scheduling a repair crew based on priority and existing assignments, all while keeping the constituent updated in real-time.

2. Grant Management & Disbursements

Consider a healthcare trust identifying a patient who needs energy-saving home improvements. A Grants Agent can collect data from the trust, the non-profit, and third-party energy providers simultaneously. By using its reasoning engine to determine eligibility and priority, the Agent can allocate funds in weeks rather than months, removing the “paperwork wall” that often stops help from reaching those in need.

3. Candidate Qualification

Government entities often struggle with high staff turnover and a deluge of applications. An Agent can be deployed to surface only the most qualified candidates. In advanced stages, agents can even analyse unstructured data from applicant videos to identify the top five candidates based on job descriptions and call scripts. This saves hundreds of hours for underfunded HR teams, eliminating the need for expensive external consultancies.

A Future of Efficiency

All these processes can be overseen from the Agentic OS in Slack. There is no need to switch between dozens of tools; everything is handled within a conversational interface where knowledge is centralised.

We are on the cusp of a major shift. In the US, there are currently between 1,000 and 1,500 public-sector Salesforce (Salesforce, 2025) customers among nearly 100,000 total government entities (Census of Governments, 2026). However, as the “Agentic” model proves its worth, we predict these numbers will climb rapidly. The UK is set to mirror this trend as local and central government bodies seek to reclaim those 30.6 million wasted hours.

The transition from legacy “dead-end” tech to an Agentic Operating System is no longer a luxury – it is a necessity for a functioning modern democracy.

Are you ready to reclaim your team’s time and transform the constituent experience?

Book a call with our experts today to explore our PubSec accelerators.

References

Civil Service World (2024). The Productivity Gap: Measuring Inefficiency in the UK Public Sector. [online] Available at: https://www.civilserviceworld.com [Accessed 18 Mar. 2026].

Salesforce (2024). Connected Government Report: Global Trends in Public Sector Digitisation. 4th ed. San Francisco: Salesforce Research.

Salesforce (2025). The Future of the Slack OS: Insights from Steve Hamrick. [online] Salesforce Newsroom. Available at: https://www.salesforce.com/news [Accessed 19 Mar. 2026].

Salesforce (2026). Webinar: Reimagine Mission Delivery with an Agentic Operating System for Public Service. [online] Available at: https://www.salesforce.com/events/webinars/reimagine-mission-delivery-with-an-agentic-operating-system/.

U.S. Census Bureau (2026). 2026 Census of Governments: Preliminary Report on Digital Infrastructure. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office.