On 26th February, Infosys | Simpus was thrilled to sponsor Agentforce World Tour Sydney 2025, Salesforce’s premier annual event on the #1 AI CRM.
What an inspiring day! With over 105 expert-led sessions and 50 demos, the event was packed with learning, hands-on experiences, and discussions about what’s possible when humans with AI agents work together.
AI agents, like Agentforce, are set to revolutionise how companies deepen customer relationships and boost team productivity. By bringing together autonomous agents, unified data and apps on the Salesforce platform, companies are starting to do business in a whole new way.
On the day, we heard customers share inspiring stories about real, AI-driven use cases, while experts offered essential tips on what you need to succeed in the AI agent era.
Here are the highlights from the day’s keynote and sessions on financial services, the public sector, and higher education.
KEYNOTE
What if a workforce has no limits?
Frank Fillmann, Executive Vice President and General Manager, of Salesforce Australia and New Zealand, summed up the pressures so many businesses are feeling with the pace of change today:
- The tight labour market, making it hard to hire good people
- Almost a decade of flat productivity
- Customer frustration over brands not meeting their expectations
- Stretched Australian workers – 60% are burnt out, with 41% of time wasted on low-value tasks.
Facing a supply and demand challenge, many organisations are finding it difficult to scale to meet rising customer needs. Frank says what’s first required is a breakthrough mindset by asking, “What if?”
Frank asks, “What if workforces were abundant and elastic? What if businesses never had to sleep? What if every customer experienced the very best service possible?”
The second circuit breaker to today’s challenges, said Frank, is a technology that can deliver, like Agentforce.
Introducing Agentforce: The digital workforce solution
Agentforce is an autonomous AI application that provides always-on, specialised support for employees and customers – changing how we get work done and engage and build relationships with employees, customers and partners.
Agents take on jobs instead of waiting for instructions, freeing up employees to work on higher-value tasks. Essentially, if a company can describe the job, Agentforce can do it – within set guardrails – enhancing productivity, reducing costs, and unlocking new levels of innovation and scalability.
With 75% of generative AI’s value expected to come from frontline functions like customer operations, marketing, and sales, AI agents offer businesses a new-found capacity to serve customers 24/7. Fisher & Paykel Appliances, for example, is now using Agentforce to resolve 30% of its customer queries, saving its staff 3,300 hours per month.
Don’t DIY your AI
To maximise ROI, expert deployment is key. As Frank says, “Don’t DIY your AI.”
That’s where Infosys | Simplus comes in. As a key Enterprise AI and Agentforce partner, we help companies leverage their existing Salesforce platform, identify the most critical, high-impact use cases, and deploy AI agents quickly and easily – ensuring maximum ROI.
Our AI roadmaps, coupled with our prebuilt use cases, guide organisations through their AI journey to ensure success from start to finish. To ignite AI journeys, our AI solutions include:
- Agentforce LiftOff for those with a pre-defined use case for AI agents to quickly drive value
- AI Spark for those wanting help identifying what AI solutions best meet their needs
- Data Catalyst for those wanting to centralise customer information across systems
- Ascend for those wanting to prepare and develop a solid AI foundation
“For the first time, workforces can augment human capability with trusted, autonomous AI agents working 24/7 to greatly expand productivity, efficiency, innovation, and business competition.”
AGENTFORCE
How to build an AI agent
One of the most practical sessions of the day was learning how to build and train an AI agent. Salesforce outlined the six essential steps from data collection to deployment:- Start with a strategy: Don’t just build them. Focus on your business priorities – what your leaders care about most – so you can set up metrics and generate ROI.
- Define your agent: What are its tasks going to be? What data does it need to access? When does it hand off the job to humans? Start with a narrow scope, go live, and extend from there.
- Foundations for success: Determine roles and responsibilities for people and agents, end-to-end. Understand the risks with people, business, technology and data. Seek to continuously improve.
- Configure your agent: Give agents simple instructions on how to act on topics and set up processes to escalate to humans. Keep it simple. Remember, agents love structured content. Use GenAI to help.
- Test your agent: Test your agent for data they should (and shouldn’t) be accessing. Ask users to test it in a live situation. Make use of the Agentforce Testing Centre to speed up the testing cycle.
- Go live and beyond: Integrate the AI agent into your chosen platform (e.g. website, mobile app or voice-activated platform). Monitor it closely for issues and collect feedback from users.
DATA CLOUD
Unlocking the value of connected data
A common business problem is having data trapped in disconnected systems and not ready to support AI investments. This is why many are embracing AI-first platforms that unlock their siloed data and make it available to workers. According to Salesforce, research shows these tech-led, AI-first SMBs are growing at four times their competitors’ speed. Data Cloud helps solve this critical problem and has become Salesforce’s fastest-growing product. It addresses data fragmentation by integrating data from diverse sources – like PDFs, texts, calls, and voicemails – harmonising everything into a unified view. It also connects customer data across all Salesforce Customer 360 applications, including Agentforce, making AI agents more contextually aware and adaptable. Companies like Urban Rest, a premium accommodation provider, are already seeing the benefits. Using Data Cloud and Agentforce, Urban Rest is delivering 24/7 support to guests across the globe, resolving up to 30% of inquiries through the platform and boosting productivity by 50%. “Since placing AI at the centre of our strategy, we have been doubling our business each year,” says Amanda Carne, COO of Urban Rest. “Data Cloud and Agentforce serve us information that would take a human several minutes to gather, in seconds. It gives us a real advantage in the way we scale.”INFOSYS | SIMPLUS PARTNER SESSION
Outpace Competition: How to avoid AI missteps and unlock efficiency
In this session, our CEO David Strangward shared insights from the recent Enterprise AI Readiness Radar report by Infosys Knowledge Institute. The research revealed that executive mindsets about AI don’t always match company culture, impacting progress on AI. In fact, only 2% are ready for Enterprise AI.
So, what’s the best way to align corporate culture and leadership mindset, influence stakeholder perspectives and drive transformative system-wide change? Here is our five-step framework to elevate Enterprise AI readiness:
- Develop a comprehensive AI strategy: As top bank analyst Mike Mayo says: “If you’re a bank and don’t have an AI strategy, then you don’t have a strategy.”
- Establish responsible AI governance: Governance guardrails for AI are vital in the data-driven landscape.
- Upskill and build the workforce: Forward-thinking companies are creating AI learning pathways to nurture upskilling, close workforce gaps and improve adoption & ROI.
- Prepare data infrastructure for AI: Data quality and accessibility continue to be some of the biggest barriers to AI success, with companies needing to bring all their data under unified management.
- Cultivate a culture of tech-powered innovation: Getting technology into people’s hands is the starting point for becoming proficient with new technology.
Read the full Enterprise AI Radar report to find out how far companies around the globe have progressed across five pillars: strategy, governance, talent, data, and technology.
FINANCIAL SERVICES
Building an AI-powered financial services business
The financial services industry is at a turning point – workforces are stretched thin and customer expectations keep rising. To bridge this gap, banks and financial institutions are turning to AI, with the industry set to outspend others on AI solutions in the coming years.
Leading the shift is Agentforce, designed to help financial services organisations extend their teams and get work done faster. These agents are configured with Salesforce data and industry-specific data models for banks, lenders, insurers, and wealth and asset managers. By automating tasks like documentation, audit trails, and filings, Agentforce reduces admin burden and frees up employees to focus on high-value work.
Salesforce recommends starting small and gradually expanding an AI implementation to learn from mistakes and iterate quickly. For example, banks can use agents to streamline onboarding for new customers. Insurers can automate claims management, allowing teams to focus on providing exceptional service. In wealth management, financial advisors can use agents to personalise their service – deepening client relationships while increasing productivity.
How AI is transforming the member experience at HBF
Not-for-profit health insurer HBF shared how AI is helping it service customers better while supporting staff.
Sanjeev Gupta, Chief Information & Transformation Officer at HBF, described the ‘perfect storm’ the insurance industry currently faces: an aging population driving up the number of claims, inflation increasing costs, and rising customer expectations for high-quality service.
To meet these demands, HBF has undergone a multi-year digital transformation. “With up to 80 per cent of our member interactions via digital channels, it is essential we have modern systems in place to make life simpler for our members,” said Sanjeev. Using Financial Services Cloud, HBF has created a 360-degree member view, allowing seamless engagement across its website, app, and myHBF portal.
This “single pane of glass” approach enables staff to deliver more personalised and efficient interactions. The result? Cases are resolved faster, enrolments are streamlined, and members can easily self-serve for quick answers, leading to better health outcomes.
“It used to be quite cumbersome finding information across multiple screens,” said Sanjeev. “Now, we can do it quite quickly. For people servicing our customers, job satisfaction has also gone up.”
Looking ahead, HBF is exploring agentic AI to work alongside contact centre employees to ensure efficient, 24/7 service.
PUBLIC SECTOR
Using data and AI to unlock government efficiency
Research shows that while citizen satisfaction with Australian and NZ digital government services is rising, it still has a way to go, with 75% expecting services to match top private-sector standards. Meanwhile, 71% say they are open GenAI-powered services, as long as it has human oversight.
This uncovers an opportunity for governments to harness AI better – agents in particular – to make 24/7 services more accessible, personalised, and efficient while fostering trust. One government entity leading the way is Victorian food safety regulator PrimeSafe.
PrimeSafe wanted to unlock its extensive business knowledge and safely integrate it with AI capabilities to help businesses progress faster, while ensuring compliance as licensed operators. It has begun using Agentforce for a set of targeted use cases to automate repetitive low-level tasks – demonstrating the power of AI in regulatory environments.
PrimeSafe had two pieces of advice for government entities looking to harness agentic AI:
- Identify use cases early on, such as repetitive tasks that people don’t enjoy doing
- Don’t overestimate the power of using partners – they play a critical role in helping to optimise workflows, improve service delivery and deliver on strategic outcomes.
Agentforce in action: How governments can transform service delivery
Wondering how Agentforce can help governments transform engagement with citizens and provide personalised service faster? One of the easiest ways to understand Agentforce is to picture it in action.
Salesforce described this scenario: Adam, a man living in regional NSW is struggling with the cost of living. Adam has lost his job and needs financial assistance. He visits a government benefits assistance portal and is greeted by an autonomous benefit finder agent.
The agent converses naturally with Adam and is able to take the following actions:
- Verify his identity and understands his needs
- Recommend relevant support options
- Open a case (Adam selects Rent Choice Subsidy)
- Cross-references Adam’s financial status using Data Cloud
- Confirms his eligibility and hands off the case to Benefits Management Officer, Claire.
Thanks to the agent’s prework, Adam’s subsidy is processed by Claire in just over a week, reducing the usual wait time by weeks.
HIGHER EDUCATION
Agents boost student recruitment and enrolment experiences at Unity
Educational institutions right now are feeling stretched. Staff shortages are resulting in heavier workloads, with teams trying to do more with less to meet enrolment goals. With recruitment more critical than ever, universities are turning to AI agents to help ease the burden and improve student enrolment support while lowering costs.
Unity Environmental University, a U.S.-based institution specialising in environmental science education, has already seen success by integrating Agentforce within its Education Cloud workflows.
Unity’s recruiting teams, previously overwhelmed with hundreds of daily student inquiries, now save weeks in processing time – the equivalent of $800 saved in staff resource time for every request for information made via their website. With Salesforce Education Cloud and Agentforce, Unity aims to increase the number of students enrolled from 10,000 to 50,000 in five years. It also plans to use Agentforce to enhance student support across the entire learner lifecycle.
“We can’t wait to start utilising Agentforce to completely reimagine our recruitment and enrolment processes,” said Dr Melik Khour, President & CEO of Unity Environmental University. “Instead of traditional forms or even chatbots, our students will soon have the convenience and personalised support of interacting with an autonomous recruitment agent directly on our website.”
Building the future of education with humans and AI agents
Professor Martin Bean, a visionary leader shaping the future of education and CEO of The Bean Centre, shared the three elements that make up a great student experience and how AI agents can fill the gap:
1) AI agents can enhance teaching and learning by:
- Providing instant academic support such as answering common course-related questions
- Offering personalised learning recommendations based on student progress
- Automating routine tasks like grading quizzes and managing assignments
- Identifying struggling students early, allowing instructors to intervene with targeted support.
2) AI agents can support the creation of seamless student experiences by:
- Handling common administrative queries 24/7
- Streamlining enrolment, financial support and course selection processes
- Sending personalised automated reminders to ensure students never miss deadlines, registrations or key events.
3) AI agents can help foster belonging by:
- Identifying at-risk students based on behaviour patterns and prompt proactive outreach
- Curating personalised events, clubs, and networking opportunities based on student interests
- Ensuring students feel supported, seen, and valued throughout their journey.
QUT slashes contact centre response times by up to 30% with AI agents
Queensland University of Technology (QUT) shared how it recently transformed its contact centre operations – decommissioning 25 legacy systems and consolidating its data into Salesforce’s single platform.
QUT now has 750 frontline staff on Salesforce providing personalised student support and engagement using Data Cloud and Agentforce, slashing its contact centre response times by up to 30% – from minutes to seconds.
Natural language processing is empowering students to converse with AI agents like they would with a human. Meanwhile, AI-powered case classifications and custom prompts streamline the triage process, enabling human agents to spend more time on complex enquiries.
James Rail, Program Director at QUT, offers three tips for those embarking on the Agentforce. “Firstly, know your data – at points, it’s going to be ugly. Second, understand the use cases – link everything back to a purpose. And third, prioritise your use cases – you have to start small to dream big.”
Keen to outpace the competition with AI-enhanced efficiency?
Infosys | Simplus amplifies the power of Salesforce and its AI functionalities to equip organisations to build more engaging customer experiences. We bring a deep understanding of the Salesforce ecosystem and the business transformation process, honed from over 5,000 projects.
Let us help you maximise ROI from the power of agentic AI – get in touch with Infosys | Simplus today.
Not sure where to start?
If you are unsure where to begin your AI journey, contact us to explore our AI Readiness Workshops. These workshops are designed to help you understand how to unlock efficiency in your organisation and gain a competitive edge in the AI era.
