“We asked Australian workers what percentage of their time they spend on manual and repetitive tasks, and they said 40 per cent so, even if we could just take half of that and automate it, that sounds like an amazing outcome for employees.” – Rowena Westphalen, Salesforce
Hear the entire iTnews podcast with Salesforce’s Rowena Westphalen
As businesses grapple with the transformative potential of AI, Salesforce is leading the pack with a remarkably accessible approach.
At September’s Dreamforce conference – the largest AI conference in the world – the tech giant showcased the ease with which businesses can create and onboard autonomous AI agents. Thousands of agents were activated during the event as art of the launch of Agentforce, said Rowena Westphalen, Salesforce senior vice-president of innovation, AI and customer advisory ANZ.
“We started the weekend before with a huge number of my team in San Francisco getting hands-on training with Agentforce,” Westphalen told the iTnews podcast, describing the set of tools used to create and customize autonomous agents.
“And then, during the week, we switched on agents for many, many customers. In fact, globally, we did about 10,000 activations.”
Salesforce users could proceed with Agentforce even if they didn’t have all their target data in it, she said.
“Because we use a part of the Salesforce Data Cloud to pull in external data. And so a simple agent to get going could simply be your knowledge base on your website, cases stored in Salesforce, or historical sales information that you might have.”
Work smarter not harder: The case for AI in Australian businesses
It’s no secret that multifactor productivity (MFP) in Australia has long stalled. The Australian Bureau of Statistics found that for the 2022–23 financial year, MFP fell 0.5 per cent, while labour productivity plunged 2.9 per cent — the largest decline since the ABS started recording it in 1995.
In short, the ABS found that although Australians were working longer hours since the pandemic, they now needed to work smarter.
So it’s no surprise that productivity is top of many executives’ minds, and a key focus for why businesses were onboarding AI, said Westphalen.
“AI can help individuals be more productive, deliver better customer service, take away manual and repetitive tasks” she said.
“We asked Australian workers what percentage of their time they spend on manual and repetitive tasks, and they said 40 per cent so, even if we could just take half of that and automate it, that sounds like an amazing outcome for employees, and for businesses looking to use resources more productively.
Beyond chatbots – On the road to AI-empowered customer service
Westphalen said Salesforce customers could start their AI journey with a simple customer service agent.
To demonstrate the power of this approach, Salesforce EVP of product and industries marketing, Patrick Stokes, demonstrated live on stage how an Agentforce agent elevated the customer experience. Stokes showed Agentforce using natural language to advise a customer on a cashmere jumper’s care and handling.
“But then he also had some great examples where he had got the wrong size of a garment that he wanted,” said Westphalen. “And so the agent said to him, OK, fine, we’ll do a replacement; we’ll refund you, and we’ll ship you the new product in four days time.”
When the customer demurred, the agent stepped up autonomously.
“A traditional chatbot would have [said]: ‘OK, wait to speak to a human’ or maybe go into the store,” she said.
“Agentforce was then able to go: ‘Oh, OK, not quick enough. All right, let me see what stock I have in a local store. There’s a store near you now, you can go and pick it up in two hours time.’
“So it was able to pivot really quickly. It’s not just the kind of conversational element that’s useful, it’s also the actionability that’s really interesting.”
Supporting business leaders with trusted AI
Recent Salesforce research identified disconnects between high-level AI strategy and implementation at the coalface; more than half of surveyed executives said they had a clear and defined AI strategy, while the majority said concerns around accessibility, inclusivity and accuracy still posed barriers to implementation.
Westphalen said such a disconnect between AI ambition and action could be bridged through education, enablement and considering human factors involved in successful AI implementation.
And she said there was a “huge discrepancy between generational adoption of AI” between workers, suggesting that businesses need to account for varying levels of comfort and readiness in the workplace.
“So get hands on, get practical and, as you try it out, then you realise what it is you actually need. Nothing like doing it yourself to work out what it is you need.”
Want more? Westphalen spotlighted Salesforce’s Trailhead website for business leaders seeking to elevate AI knowledge within their organisation. The company is offering its premium AI courses and certifications for free throughout 2025. Visit trailhead.salesforce.com to speed your organisation’s AI transformation with Salesforce.