Agentic AI is transforming call centres by enhancing – rather than replacing – the role of human workers, according to global CRM firm Salesforce.
In October 2024, Salesforce integrated its agentic AI platform, Agentforce, into its customer support help site. In July 2025, the company released results from the roll-out, indicating that Agentforce now resolves 85% of all customer queries autonomously, with only 5% of cases escalated to human agents.
The integration has also led to a 2% increase in self-service traffic and a 5% decrease in support case volume, which Salesforce attributes to more issues being resolved before cases are logged. Most AI-driven conversations relate to sales and service enquiries.
Salesforce reports that AI-handled interactions are achieving a customer satisfaction score of 4.2 – on par with human-led service. The help site receives 60 million visits annually, and the support team processes 2 million support requests. Since January 2025, 90% of users have seen a 65% reduction in response times.
Human agents are still vital
Despite AI’s efficiency gains, Salesforce maintains that human agents remain critical to its customer service model.
In a recent blog post, Jim Roth, president of Salesforce Customer Success, acknowledged the company had initially focused too heavily on automation.
“People still want humans. Initially, our goal was to get human hand-off rates down to 1%, but the feedback was startling – we’d made it too difficult for customers to reach a human when they truly needed to. Our focus now is on customer success, not case deflection,” Roth wrote.
Linda Saunders, country manager and senior director of Solution Engineering, Africa at Salesforce, said the hybrid approach is particularly valuable in emerging markets.
“Synergy between AI and human talent boosts customer and human agent satisfaction, creating opportunities for new growth and upskilling. For Africa, this approach is transformative, empowering our diverse talent pool to thrive in the digital economy. It enhances customer experiences, increases job satisfaction and paves the way for higher-value skills, accelerating Africa's digital transformation."
Salesforce says agentic AI is best used to handle routine tasks, allowing human workers to focus on more complex, emotionally nuanced and relationship-driven interactions. This approach, it argues, results in higher customer satisfaction, improved agent morale and greater opportunities for employee development and career growth.
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