Salesforce & Google Cloud expand AI-driven partnership

Salesforce and Google Cloud have announced an expanded partnership aimed at enhancing the capabilities of AI-driven systems across both platforms.

The new development will allow customers to leverage Google Cloud's Vertex AI and its Gemini models within Salesforce and Slack, enabling the creation of advanced AI agents. These agents, known as Agentforce, will integrate across Salesforce Customer 360, Slack, and Google Workspace, providing more seamless and efficient workflows.

Brian Landsman, Executive Vice President for Global Technology Partners at Salesforce, highlighted the significance of this collaboration: "We're creating the world's first agent ecosystem together with partners like Google Cloud. Humans work across many systems to get work done, and to be effective, agents need to as well. Together, Salesforce and Google Cloud are delivering a fully AI-infused productivity suite."

The expanded partnership will offer users the ability to develop and deploy autonomous agents that can perform tasks within the applications they use daily. These agents will benefit from existing bidirectional integrations between Salesforce and Google Workspace, allowing for actions based on customer data stored across both platforms.

Stephen Orban, Vice President for Partnerships at Google Cloud, added: "This partnership brings together platforms where millions of people get work done every day. Salesforce's Agentforce platform will help customers apply Google Cloud AI to real-world use cases, like business development, ecommerce, and much more — with enterprise-grade trust and accuracy."

Customers will gain access to new capabilities through Agentforce later this year. These capabilities include building custom agents that have skills applicable across Google Workspace and Salesforce Customer 360. For example, Google Workspace actions will enable an Agentforce Sales Development Representative (SDR) Agent to generate Google Slides and Docs from templates. Moreover, context from Gmail and Docs will be securely utilised in Salesforce to update records and initiate workflows, such as saving a signed contract and generating a win-loss report in Docs.

The integration is bolstered by enterprise-grade security and privacy protections, ensuring that all customer data remains secure. The existing integration between Salesforce Data Cloud and Google BigQuery further enhances these capabilities. This allows customers to ground their AI agents with accurate, real-time data from both platforms, significantly improving the trust and accuracy of their responses.

An example provided illustrates how eCommerce customers can benefit from this partnership. By grounding their Merchant Agent in data stored within Google BigQuery, such as purchasing habits, advertising spend, and customer segmentation, eCommerce merchandisers can receive more precise and reliable assistance from AI agents.

Agentforce's ability to take actions based on data from Google BigQuery without moving or copying the data is made possible through Zero Copy technology. This integration is already available, providing users with advanced data handling capabilities.

The broader objective of this collaboration is to drive enterprise-level AI innovation, making work more efficient across multiple platforms. Users are expected to see the general availability of Agentforce Agent Actions for Google Workspace on Salesforce AppExchange later this year.

This partnership forms part of Salesforce's ongoing efforts to provide advanced AI solutions that integrate seamlessly with daily business operations. It signifies a step forward in the practical application of AI in various business environments, offering users enhanced productivity and data security.