"AI agents will manifest into robots," Salesforce claims
"This is just the beginning of a complete digital transformation for the world."
The corporate software titan Salesforce has predicted that AI agents will soon "manifest" into autonomous robots.
In an earnings call, Marc Russell Benioff, Co-Founder and CEO, predicted that AI models are only the beginning of a global robotic revolution that will see non-humans join the workforce in incredible numbers.
Salesforce recently launched a low-code platform called AgentForce, which introduces an "agentic layer" for building, customizing, and deploying autonomous agents to "support employees and customers".
An AI agent is a software entity that autonomously makes decisions and takes actions to achieve specific goals. They will play a key role in a revolution that is more or less certain to replace vast numbers of human employees in the next decade.
Goldman Sachs believes as many as 300 million jobs could be axed, with a quarter of all roles in the US and Europe lost to automation.
Of course, if you're the person that owns the machines, then those job losses don't matter one jot because the productivity boost and cost reduction of AI will generate potentially unprecedented profits. If you're not a member of this vanishingly small class of AI tycoons, you might want to think about training for the Hunger Games.
Beyond agentic AI
Speaking yesterday, the Salesforce chief sketched out a positive vision of this future.
"We've created this incredible agentic layer around the whole company," he said. "And this is just the beginning of a complete digital transformation for the world. On top of this agentic layer, we'll soon see a robotic layer as well where these agents will manifest into robots.
"And how all of this is going to change society is only visible today in the movies or in our imaginations, but we can see it unfolding right here through this company, Salesforce. And that is what we are really excited about."
He said AI agents are not just tools, but "collaborators" for the staff who will left standing after the AI revolution.
"They're working 24/7 to analyze data, make decisions, take action, and we can all start to picture this enterprise managing millions of customer interactions daily," he continued.
He predicted that Salesforce-powered robots will become "manifestations of agents" that will soon be working "side by side" with humans.
"It's all happening before our eyes and this isn't just some far-off future, it's happening right now," he said.
"And the implications are just simply profound. For decades, economic growth depended on expanding the human workforce, it was all about getting more labor, but with labor and with the labor force stagnating globally, Agentforce is unlocking a new path forward.
"It's a new level of growth for the world and for our GDP and businesses no longer need to choose between scale and efficiency with agents, they can achieve both."
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