‘People’s jobs will be changed’: Salesforce global CMO on how AI agents are the new digital labour force rapidly reshaping customer service, marketing and commerce; plus the ‘false precision’ of brand attribution

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It’s less than a year since Salesforce launched autonomous AI agents into the wild. But the bots are already reshaping business functions. In the US, online accounting platform 1-800 Accountants, which handles payroll and book keeping for circa 100,000 firms, has slashed the time staff spend on customer service by 70 per cent. Open Table and Singapore Air are deploying the agents to similar effect. But what are they doing with all that freed human capital? And what are the broader implications for everyone as ‘agentics’ move rapidly through the digital supply chain?

Salesforce global CMO Ariel Kelman and his say we will all soon have our own agentics buying – and negotiating prices – for us in online shopping and services. Which has significant implications for business structures and marketing functions and capability in particular. Kelman says we are now looking at a step change in marketing automation beyond content, where the agentic labour force will generate campaign briefs, launch campaigns off those briefs, and self-optimise the creative messaging and channels to deliver on the brief it crafted in the first place.

Outside of agentics, Kelman says Salesforce’s new multi-touch attribution model is powering, telling the firm which marketing investments are driving sales and how cost-efficient they are. But not for brand – Kelman thinks it’s pointless trying to attach a dollar value to brand investments in B2B. “It’s just so disconnected from the purchase.” Those attempting to do so, he suggests, are “operating at a false level of precision.”

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