If you’ve been on any of Salesforce’s official webpages over the last few months, or you paid attention at Dreamforce 2026, you’d know that Salesforce has introduced Piper, its new AI Sales Development Representative (SDR) agent, and a whole team of new out-of-the-box agents.
While these are exciting developments, and no doubt offer a lot of functionality to Salesforce customers, I can’t help but feel that Salesforce’s design for these new faces is a little unsettling. In conversations I’ve had with other Salesforce professionals, I’m not the only one.
Piper: The Uncanny Valley Future of Agentforce
Head over to Salesforce’s homepage for any reason, or onto one of their product pages to learn more about the latest updates from Dreamforce, and you’ll be greeted by a new face – Piper.
Don’t get me wrong, Piper is fantastic. If you’re curious about the details of a product but don’t want to go searching through the documentation, Piper is there to help. Simply ask the question you’re curious about, and Piper will search through Salesforce’s documentation to find the right answer – your time is saved!
Piper came about due to Salesforce’s 2025 acquisition of Qualified. Believe it or not, Piper’s face has changed since the acquisition – the original version of Piper is still accessible at Qualified’s website.
Frankly, I’m not sure which version is more unsettling – the original, which looks slightly more realistic, or the newer version, which reminds me of the early days of Zuckerberg’s Metaverse.
What Is Uncanny Valley?
You know that feeling you get when you see one of Tesla’s Optimus robots performing a task, or when you watch The Polar Express? Knowing that something looks mostly like a real human, but isn’t quite there. Enough that you know what it’s trying to be, but can also see that it’s slightly off.
That feeling you get in the pit of your stomach is the uncanny valley. That’s precisely how I felt when I saw Piper for the first time, and based on conversations I’ve had, I know I’m not the only one.
There’s something about Piper’s face being close enough to a real human, and mimicking the way a real face would move, but not actually being a real human that has a negative impact on many who experience it.
The Avatar Is the Problem
Now, I’m not here to critique the functionality that Piper offers. I’m specifically talking about the digital avatar that Salesforce has chosen to represent their new AI SDR agent. It’s one thing to use a human-like avatar, but giving it a cartoon-like makeover so that it almost looks human, but not quite, is where I believe the problem lies.
The reality is simple – we’ve been using powerful LLM chatbots like ChatGPT for years now, and people have come to expect them on web pages. Before these tools existed, there were also more basic chatbots and human live chat interfaces that were simple text boxes. Going back almost three decades, cartoon avatars were far more prevalent. Think about Microsoft’s Clippy, for example.
The question then becomes: why did Salesforce choose to go with a hybrid cartoon/realistic human avatar? Especially after the backlash against what Meta did with its Meta avatars. Piper’s newer design looks similar to this, so what is the strategy here? What is the benefit to the end user?
The Phygital Future
I recently read an article by Andrew Tan of Ernst & Young entitled “How businesses can embrace a phygital future with digital avatars“. In it, he details some of the benefits to businesses of using digital avatars, like Piper. Most notably, he suggested that they enhance the user experience for customers and are far more engaging for those same customers.
He also suggested that digital avatars could be used in B2B contexts in the form of interactive training and insights, as well as collaboration and communication. He suggested that digital avatars in general could be used to deliver personalized experiences that make customers feel more valued and understood.
I understand that, generally speaking, giving something a face and a name makes it easier for humans to engage with it in a more meaningful way. That being said, I’m not sure this is the case for Salesforce’s Piper. Sometimes, a poor implementation is worse than no implementation at all.
If Salesforce took a slightly different approach to Piper’s avatar, perhaps this would have the desired effect. Salesforce’s mascots have become a beloved part of the company’s culture over the years, and they feature heavily in the company’s marketing.
The Salesforce community loves these mascots, and they’ve never received anywhere near as much backlash as Piper did. Perhaps creating new, non-human digital avatars for these new agents would be a better option.
Summary
It’s come up in conversation multiple times since launch, so I know I’m not the only one who’s noticed how unsettling Piper’s avatar is. What’s slightly less clear is why Salesforce decided to add a digital avatar at all, what the benefit is to end users, and what they should do instead.
What do you think Salesforce should do here? Is it as simple as evolving Piper’s avatar to be more realistic, or more cartoonish? Is the digital avatar even necessary at all, or does it distract from the real value that Piper brings – the ability to surface relevant information about Salesforce’s products from multiple sources?
