Salesforce and IBM have announced the extension of their partnership to develop autonomous AI agents. The partnership targets organisations in regulated industries such as financial services, manufacturing, telecommunications, and insurance. This collaboration will enable these companies to deploy these agents using their own proprietary data, controls, and on-premises systems while integrating advanced AI capabilities provided by IBM's Granite AI models within the Salesforce ecosystem.
The partnership aims to leverage IBM's technology to ensure compliance with industry-specific regulations. It will facilitate secure access to mainframe and Db2 data for AI tasks and automate tasks within compliant guardrails using Salesforce's Agentforce agents. It will also integrate IBM's Watson AI into Slack, enabling enhanced automation capabilities for enterprises.
Brian Landsman, Executive Vice President of Global Technology Partners at Salesforce, said: "By deepening our partnership with IBM, we are setting a new standard for enterprise innovation in highly regulated industries. With these new expanded data integration capabilities, we're transforming how businesses interact with their core systems, helping data stay secure while also tapping the power of AI. Together, we are empowering our customers to exceed their strategic objectives by making their data and agents work harder and smarter for them."
The collaboration will enable Salesforce and IBM to provide pre-built AI agents and tools that organisations can deploy within their IT environments. This partnership will use their unique data while maintaining strict control over their systems. Leveraging watsonx Orchestrate, IBM will develop autonomous agents for Agentforce, helping businesses improve productivity, maintain security, and adhere to regulations. Additionally, IBM customers will be able to use Slack to engage in conversational experiences with their agents.
Integrations planned between Salesforce Data Cloud and IBM Data Gate for watsonx can enable customers to access their business data in IBM Z mainframes and Db2 databases. This access will fuel agents, combined data analysis, and AI workflows across the Agentforce platform. Furthermore, users will have various AI models and deployment options through integration with IBM watsonx.ai, powered by IBM's Granite family of foundation models built for business.
Nick Otto, Head of Global Strategic Partnerships at IBM, commented: "Our partnership with Salesforce is about providing customers with unparalleled choice and flexibility in how they leverage AI, beginning with sales and services use cases. By providing joint customers the automation and data integration capabilities they need to build their own agents within the Salesforce Platform, along with access to our trusted Granite models, we are empowering them to deliver meaningful, AI-driven transformation across their organisations."
Through the Agentforce Partner Network, businesses will be able to build and customise AI agents that independently interact with various enterprise tools and platforms. Agentforce Agents can understand and make decisions to help users perform multi-step tasks based on triggers or chats. These agents also have the capability to interact with users when necessary to approve tasks that exceed their assigned scope or authority. This functionality aims to free up internal resources to focus on more strategic work while enhancing efficiency and streamlining operations.
IBM plans to integrate watsonx Orchestrate, its generative AI product, with Salesforce Agentforce. This integration aims to develop new pre-built agents designed to meet specific business challenges and powered by both Salesforce and IBM's data and AI. IBM Consulting will play a significant role in this initiative, helping enterprises select, customise, deploy, and scale AI agents to address specific industry challenges faster and more effectively.
The collaboration extends to enhancing data integration strategies, building on the previously announced Zero Copy integration between Salesforce Data Cloud and watsonx.data. This initiative will help joint customers in financial services, insurance, manufacturing, and telecommunications to leverage mainframe datasets to power AI use cases on the Salesforce platform.
MOL Group shared its perspective on the partnership's potential benefits. István Mag, Head of Digital Factory at MOL Group, stated: "At MOL Group, we're transforming service stations into preferred journey stops, not just refuelling points. Working with Salesforce and IBM gives us unprecedented choice and flexibility in AI utilisation as we look to the future of autonomous agents. Moving forward, we anticipate technology such as Agentforce will help us to deliver hyper-personalised services through the innovative use of Agentforce and IBM's watsonx AI, fuelling meaningful, AI-driven transformation and enhancing customer engagement and satisfaction with every service station visit."
