AI in Salesforce: Evolve or Be Replaced

“Either get on with it and participate, or start digging your own grave.” These words spoken by Copado CEO, Ted Elliott, regarding artificial intelligence and agentic AI may certainly raise a few eyebrows. But if you take a serious look at the current AI landscape, the rapid progression of Agentforce, and the overall ambitions of Salesforce, we are already seeing AI make its impact on the ecosystem.

There has been continued discourse of concerns about the potential of Agentforce replacing Salesforce roles, and the CRM giant recently announced that they would conduct another round of mass layoffs, releasing around 1000 employees to make a strategic shift toward more AI-focused roles, as well as completely replacing roles with AI agents. This has also been seen in other industries, with 30% of companies replacing workers with AI last year, according to a survey.

This shift isn’t just theoretical – it’s playing out in real-time. Copado has already gone all-in on AI, embedding it into their own DevOps processes, while Salesforce is going all-in on Agentforce this year.

The reality is stark; AI is changing the way work gets done in the Salesforce ecosystem. Some roles will evolve, others will disappear, and entirely new opportunities will emerge for those bold enough to grab them.

I enjoyed a thorough discussion with Ted alongside Copado COO, Sanjay Gidwani, where we discussed how the future of Salesforce and DevOps will be impacted by this agent revolution.

The AI Tipping Point: From Hype to Reality

In 1956, John McCarthy, a professor at Dartmouth College, began a summer workshop with a group of students to brainstorm ideas for “thinking machines” – choosing the name “artificial intelligence” for the project. Since then, AI has gone through cycles of hype and stagnation, known as AI winters, where lofty promises were met with technological limitations.

The first real breakthroughs came in the 1990s and early 2000s, with IBM’s Deep Blue defeating chess champion Garry Kasparov and Google’s AI-driven search algorithms reshaping the internet. However, AI still struggled to move beyond narrow, rule-based applications.

Everything changed in 2017 with the release of “Transformer” models, which laid the groundwork for modern generative AI – leading to ChatGPT, OpenAI’s GPT series, and Salesforce’s AI. These advances turned AI from an experimental tool into a business necessity.

In more recent history, we’ve seen Salesforce experiment with assistive copilots, more specifically, Einstein copilot. While this advancement was initially met with excitement, it was quickly understood that assisting humans wasn’t going to be enough. As Ted put it, “The problem is you need autopilots (agents), not copilots.”

We have since seen a swift transition from copilot to agents that – unlike copilots – can autonomously complete complex tasks with minimal human intervention.

Copado is a prime example of a company already enjoying the benefits of agents, with Ted highlighting their improved efficiency and lower support case costs.

“We knew we had to bring AI to our Salesforce Developers, so we started using it internally – first in support, then in development. We [were able to] cut lead time from 44 days to 22. These metrics proved that if we could do it, anyone could.”

Sanjay also emphasized that Copado’s software development is undergoing a fundamental shift, where AI will compress workflows and shorten development cycles.

“The same steps still apply – plan, build, test, release, operate. But AI compresses them,” Sanjay explained. “You’ll still need methodology, visibility, and structure, but AI will accelerate the process beyond what was previously possible.”

“The biggest shift is that applications will have a shorter time to live. We’re moving towards an era where an app’s lifecycle could be measured in minutes, not years.”

To really help businesses, AI needed to take on actual tasks and replace repetitive work to save valuable time – not just assist and make suggestions.

As soon as it became clear that agentic AI was reshaping the industry, Salesforce had to move quickly and make a “hard pivot” in its AI strategy. Reports suggest that the company’s leadership took dramatic steps to accelerate innovation in agentic AI, emphasizing the urgency of staying ahead in an increasingly competitive space.

However, even with these efforts, there have been challenges. According to industry insiders, Salesforce executives have been working to refine their vision for AI agents, grappling with questions around functionality, value, and measurable success.

If the biggest CRM company in the world is still working through these complexities, it’s clear that this is more than just a passing trend – it represents a fundamental shift in the way businesses will engage with AI moving forward.

Salesforce is also facing growing competition in the AI-powered CRM landscape, with particular pressure coming from ServiceNow. Ted noted that ServiceNow’s continued growth has placed added urgency on Salesforce’s AI strategy.

“Salesforce’s biggest challenge today is ServiceNow, which has been chipping away at the lower end of ServiceCloud buyers,” Ted said. “ServiceCloud, once Salesforce’s fastest-growing cloud, operates on a premium per-user model, while ServiceNow offers a more efficient alternative.”

“In many ways, ServiceNow is making Marc really think. He’s got to bring a level of innovation that delivers this type of efficiency to case management.”

Rather than a sudden shift in market share, this has become a long-term challenge that compels Salesforce to accelerate innovation, especially in areas like case management, where AI-driven solutions are evolving rapidly.

The need for rapid AI advancement is being felt across the tech industry and beyond. In the US, AI has become a national priority, with significant investment plans aimed at maintaining leadership in the global AI race.

For Salesforce, this competitive pressure – both from industry peers and broader technological shifts – underscores the importance of AI-driven initiatives like Agentforce. Ensuring that AI solutions deliver real, tangible benefits to customers will be key as the company navigates this evolving landscape.

AI’s Role in Work Reduction

As mentioned earlier, Salesforce is one of many companies that are conducting layoffs in their workforce as more AI-driven roles and solutions emerge.

Robert Sösemann, a Principle Architect at Aquiva Labs, described this as an inevitable outcome.

“Agentforce is really going to kill some jobs, and Salesforce professionals will inevitably be affected by how Salesforce are going to use AI in the future. Entry-level jobs, [like] junior developers, and admins, might be replaced by agents.”

Agentic AI opens up the opportunity for companies to become a lot leaner. But it has a lot less to do with cost-cutting, and a lot more to do with gaining efficiency. As Ted highlighted, Copado’s AI automation cut their lead times directly in half – from 44 to 22 days, which shows fewer people can now do the same amount of work a whole lot faster.

“The fundamental flaw in human beings is we take too long to make decisions,” Ted explained. “AI helps us decrease the time it takes to actually make a decision and act on it. Human beings are good at making yes/no decisions, but the AI can present the best options so those decisions happen faster.”

In essence, automation has reached a level where it is more than capable of doing these “regular” tasks and cases, which simply means there’s no longer any need for certain roles.

With fewer entry-level positions and AI shouldering routine work, those who remain in the industry are now facing fiercer competition than ever before, according to Ted. The Copado CEO described these competitors as “wolves”, and that many may be “found out” when they face up against others.

“I think there’s gonna be a lot of wolf fights because there are gonna be more wolves that are gonna run into each other – and we all think we’re a wolf until we are identified as a sheep!”

To fundamentally ‘survive’ this pressure, there is much more expectation for employees to continuously upskill to avoid being replaced.

For Ted, there’s no real way of working around this or ignoring it – it’s now vital for admins and developers to adapt to new expectations:

“Christopher Columbus didn’t get fired for finding the new world. The safest strategy is to be the innovator, not the follower. No one who is a game changer is at risk. You just have to decide: do you want to be a game-changer, or do you want to be comfortable?”

“Right now, it’s a dangerous time to be a sheep. It’s happening, so you have two choices – either get on with it and participate, or start digging your grave.”

Ted is emphasizing that this isn’t a time to be passive or hesitant. More than a battle between wolves and sheep, he sees AI as an open door for those willing to walk through it. The professionals who lean into AI, upskill, and integrate it into their workflows will be the ones shaping the future, while those who resist risk stagnation. AI is creating new ways to win and now is the time to embrace it.

How to Stand Out in the Agentic AI Wave

If the AI revolution in Salesforce has taught us anything, it’s that the future belongs to those who actively engage with it. But how exactly can professionals make themselves invaluable in this shifting landscape?

One key takeaway from my conversation with Ted is that AI is changing the way we work rather than replacing all work. The companies and professionals who choose to harness these new capabilities will be the ones who stand out.

“You can’t just throw an AI agent into a workflow and expect it to work,” Ted explained. “What makes AI effective is structuring it effectively – building the right orchestration, defining the right processes, and ensuring it’s optimized for the business problem.”

This means that a new breed of professionals is likely to emerge, such as AI strategists and optimization experts who can actively shape how AI works.

In a recent discussion with Salesforce Recruitment Manager, Peter Kryiacou, these roles are very likely to become the norm in the future:

“In the future, Salesforce AI Developer and Salesforce AI Consultant will become common roles. You won’t find many Salesforce AI Consultant roles yet, but that’s where things are headed. I believe this will become a standard role as Salesforce AI evolves.”

So, although we may see the role vanish, it doesn’t mean that the employee – and their skillset – is lost, but merely adapting to the new job climate.

Ted also expressed how current AI capabilities should be empowering companies to think creatively and exercise agentic capabilities – using us here at Salesforce Ben as an example!

“If you want to take every video Salesforce Ben has done, every article you’ve written, and turn it into a white-label AI agent, you could,” Ted explained. “It could have the Salesforce Ben logo on it, and people could literally talk to it, paying per query to access your expertise.”

Ultimately, the future of AI in the Salesforce ecosystem isn’t just about survival – it’s about the opportunity. The next generation of Salesforce professionals will be those who actively engage with AI, shape how it works, and carve out their own place in this new era.

Final Thoughts

There’s no denying that some of the views shared in this discussion – particularly around job displacement and the urgency to adapt – may spark debate. Ted and Sanjay’s insights paint a future that some may find daunting, while others see an open door to new possibilities.

But one thing is clear: the rise of agentic AI isn’t just speculation and is already reshaping the way businesses operate. Whether you see it as a threat or a tool depends on how you approach it. AI has the power to replace, but it also has the power to make you faster, more efficient, and more valuable in an evolving workforce.

So, what do you think? Are you ready to embrace AI and make it work for you, or do you think the industry is moving too fast? Let us know in the comments below; we’d love to hear your perspective.