AI Revolution: Shaping the Future of the Workforce

How to build teams and cultures that thrive in the age of intelligent technology

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AI is shaping a new reality, where a limitless, digital workforce can now work alongside our teams to deliver value with speed and precision. As President of Global Professional Services and Forward Deployed Engineering at Salesforce, my top priority is to put our experts at the forefront of this shift. We are equipping our teams with AI platforms and tools to drive smarter, more impactful outcomes, and help customers unlock value faster than ever.

Staying Ahead in a Shifting Landscape

Business and technology leaders are demanding accelerated, tangible outcomes from their technology investments. At Salesforce, we are delivering on that promise by embracing AI as an imperative to drastically accelerate development cycles and deliver tangible ROI.

To do this quickly, we formed a dedicated team to embed generative AI for internal productivity. We are actively blending internal tools, Salesforce products like Agentforce, and third-party solutions to curate a trusted set of AI tools that our delivery teams can seamlessly integrate into their work to drive faster, more impactful results for our customers.

The outcomes of this innovative team have been profound, both for our customers and our internal teams:

• Accelerated Time to Value for Customers: By equipping our delivery teams, including our Forward Deployed Engineers, with AI, we're helping our customers realize value faster than ever. Our results prove it: 95% of customers innovate more quickly and effectively when partnered with Salesforce Professional Services. A prime example is our work with a Fortune 100 automotive brand, where our Professional Services team, empowered by this team's trusted AI tools, significantly reduced the time to go-live by 50%, meticulously migrating billions of records while ensuring quality and compliance.
• Enhanced Customer Experience: AI helps us create a more cohesive customer experience for our customers. Our AI tools capture call transcripts and insights so our delivery teams can onboard faster and arrive more prepared. This allows us to overcome siloed information and create a truly comprehensive view of the customer, enabling personalized recommendations based on their entire engagement history.
• Increased Employee Confidence and Comfort with AI: We've also taken strides to significantly boost our teams' confidence and comfort with AI. AI agents are actively embedded into the workflows of the delivery teams to help surface up knowledge faster and easily identify high-impact deals to focus on. Through structured frameworks and a culture of experimentation, we've seen a notable increase in employee feedback reflecting their readiness to embrace AI as part of their toolkit. The key is to foster an organizational mindset that views AI as an enabler, not a threat.

To effectively foster this mindset and drive sustainable AI adoption, we've identified four steps to build an AI-ready team.

Four Steps to Build an AI-Ready Team

Building an AI-ready workforce is rooted in a clear strategy and an adaptable mindset. Here are the four foundational steps we've embraced to stay on the cutting edge of AI adoption:

1. Start with a Culture of Innovation

True AI readiness begins with fostering a culture that encourages experimentation, learning, and open discussion. We're not waiting for mandates or perfectionism. Instead, we're creating the space and providing the tools for our teams to dive in, play, learn, and apply AI themselves. One of our most effective tools is an AI agent for our internal knowledge platform that intelligently curates and surfaces resources via natural language. This tool puts a personal agent directly in our teams' hands, guiding them instantly to the right best practices, processes, and people. With over 2,000 questions answered since its launch, the agent has enabled our teams to deliver value to our customers faster than ever. We are also taking cues from teams learning by doing and champion peer-driven learning through internal communities like our #ai-club channel on Slack, a marketplace for new AI use cases and ideas. This has become a thriving source for AI use cases and ideas, demonstrating the power of organic, peer-driven learning.

2. Focus on Customer Value

Beyond an innovation culture, every AI initiative, every tool we explore, must ultimately tie back to delivering tangible value for our customers. This customer-centric approach guides our entire strategy. We challenge our teams to ask: "What customer problem are you solving with AI?" This ensures that AI adoption is always purposeful and directly addresses real-world needs. Recognizing that customers have diverse needs and requirements, we provide a trusted, vetted menu of AI tools that are adaptable to a variety of use cases. We've helped customers like Williams Sonoma improve marketing engagement and go-live with Salesforce in less than half the time, ultimately resulting in 21M new subscribers. This approach ensures our teams have the flexibility to choose the best tool for each unique customer scenario, with trust as our number one value.

3. Build Trust as a Foundation

Trust is paramount in the age of AI, especially when dealing with sensitive customer data. Our approach to AI integration is built on a foundation of rigorous vetting and transparency. Every tool on our trusted AI toolkit undergoes Salesforce's comprehensive vetting processes, prioritizing trust and data security. This ensures our teams are using approved solutions that adhere to the highest standards. We actively address concerns around data privacy and ethical AI use, providing clear guidelines and fostering an environment where teams understand the implications of their AI-powered work. This proactive approach helps build AI confidence, while also ensuring our teams are equipped to adopt, scale, and innovate responsibly with AI.

4. Create a Flywheel for Product Innovation

Our team's AI usage is also a powerful engine for continuous product improvement. Our delivery teams are uniquely positioned to be the earliest testers of new Agentforce features. Their hands-on experience and direct feedback help us iterate and refine these products before they are released to the broader market. The insights gleaned from our teams' AI usage directly inform the product roadmap. This iterative feedback loop fosters a culture of continuous improvement, where our internal AI initiatives not only enhance current service delivery but also contribute to the evolution of Salesforce's broader AI offerings, benefiting all our customers in the long run.

By prioritizing innovation, customer value, and trust, we're shaping the future of what it means to be an AI-ready workforce. Through these foundational steps, we are actively building what effective human-AI collaboration looks like, and ensuring Salesforce continues to deliver unparalleled value to our customers.

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Currently, President of Salesforce's Professional Services business focused on ensuring that our global team successfully support and innovates with our customers, to help every customer achieve the greatest possible business value and return on their Salesforce investment. Formerly, President and...Read More Chief Revenue Officer for Salesforce's EMEA business; 15 year career at IBM, most recent roles include General Manager for Global Healthcare Industry Vertical, General Manager Americas Consulting Business, GM Global Business Process Outsourcing. Previously, Partner at PwC leading Digital Transformation and Enterprise Performance businesses