By John Koetsier,Senior Contributor
Copyright forbes
The deployment and use of AI agents is growing incredibly quickly, according to Salesforce.
Since January the use of AI agents for customer service tasks has exploded by a compound annual growth rate of 2,199%, according to a new report by Salesforce. The number of agents available has more than doubled in the same time span, and now 94% of customers opt to speak to AI agents when given the option.
“The agentic enterprise is going to happen,” Salesforce chief digital officer Joe Inzerillo told me earlier this week. “We’re starting to hit a tipping point where people assume that they’re competent.”
AI agents are white-hot right now. Dozens of companies are launching them every week, and both the amount and quality of work they can complete is increasingly rapidly. The new report from Salesforce, which is based on the use of agents on the company’s own platform, is an attempt to deliver a state of the union on where agents are in the workplace.
Since January of this year, there’s been:
119% increase in agents created/deployed
80% month-over-month growth in agent actions across use cases
22x increase in average customer service conversations led by AI agents
65% month-over-month growth in employee-agent interactions
76% month-over-month growth in agent actions triggered by employees
35% growth in employee-agent back-and-forth conversations
The caveat to all these statistics is that it’s easy to show vast percentage growth when you start from zero. The counterpoint to that caveat is that we’re seeing hockey-stick growth in agent deployment and use in the middle of the already-sizzling general AI ecosystem.
This new index, Inzerillo says, is not an attempt to sell AI agents. Instead, it’s intended to ground the conversation in what’s actually happening.
The data shows that sales, service, and internal operations are the leading use cases. Sales teams rely on agents to draft and send emails, create to-dos, and schedule meetings. Service organizations are seeing agents query records, answer questions, summarize cases, and increasingly resolve customer inquiries on their own.
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Travel and hospitality companies are driving the highest growth of any vertical at 133% month-over-month growth in AI agent actions, while retail is seeing 128% month-over-month growth and finance is at 105%.
“AI agents will allow for an always-on digital touchpoint that assists customers with everything from the buying process to product questions and post-purchase support,” says Calvin Anderson, a VP at SharkNinja. “Ultimately it’s about combining the power of agentic AI with the expertise of our team to deliver a truly world-class retail experience.”
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It’s not just companies driving this. Consumers are actively opting in, according to the report.
In retail, consumers who use agents are 200% more likely to say their experience improved, and when given a choice, 94% of us opt to deal with an agent rather than speak to a human being.
That’s just modern reality, says Inzerillo. We often don’t want to sound stupid, or report embarrassing problems to a person, but we’re OK revealing that to an AI agent.
“I don’t ever want to pick up the phone and talk to a customer service person,” he told me. “That’s just not what I want to do. I would prefer to text, right?”
Employees are eager for AI agents as well, the study shows. Not only has there been a 65% month-over-month growth in employee–agent interactions since January, there’s been a 76% increase in agent actions triggered by employees. That’s all aligned with a 233% increase in global worker adoption of AI since Fall 2024, Salesforce says, and it’s the path of the future: a hybrid human-AI workforce.
Which, of course, makes you wonder about human employment.
Salesforce says hybrid is better, and Inzerillo says a good indicator of that is escalations from AI agent to human personnel went up from 22% in Q1 to 32% in Q2. That might look like a problem, he noted, but it’s actually a reflection of AI agents tackling more difficult topics, and of humans working well in concert with AI.
AI agents, Salesforce says, are getting better at pinpointing when a human is needed and routing customers to the right expert.
“AI agents are already beginning to act as incredible force multipliers for businesses and
consumers,” Inzerillo said in a statement. “The index shows that agents are
fundamentally changing the way businesses work, and the more companies use and scale these agents, the greater efficiency and value they’re able to unlock.”
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