Salesforce is introducing a “first-of-its-kind” Agentforce Testing Center to help trial autonomous AI agents at scale.
The CRM giant today announced the agentic lifecycle management tools to automate Agentforce testing, try out agents in secure sandbox environments, and transparently manage usage.
Secure and Repeatable
While AI Agents are often slated to be the next big thing in the tech industry, it is crucial to test them out in sandbox environments before implementation, so problems can be ironed out without affecting businesses.
Salesforce’s new toolchain – which it is calling “the first of its kind in the industry” – will let teams test, deploy, and monitor AI agents with Agentforce at scale.
This, according to Salesforce, will enable every enterprise to become “agent-first”.
Agentforce Testing Center is in a closed pilot today, but is set to be generally available for use in sandboxes in early December. Adam Evans, EVP and GM for Salesforce AI Platform, said:
“Agentforce is helping businesses create a limitless workforce. To deliver this value fast, CIOs need new tools for testing and monitoring agentic systems.
“Salesforce introduced the concept of Application Lifecycle Management back in 2006 with Force.com.
“This new category of Agentic Lifecycle Management requires unique tools, and Salesforce is meeting the moment again with Agentforce Testing Center, which will help companies roll out trusted AI agents with no-code tools for testing, deploying, and monitoring in a secure, repeatable way.”
Easily Test and Monitor AI Agents
In an apparent swipe at the competition, Salesforce said in a press release that other vendors “lack the necessary capabilities for customers to run the appropriate tests on their AI before deploying”.
This can lead to inaccurate results, hallucinations, and poor customer experiences, the company said.
“Agentforce Testing Center – built on the enterprise-grade Salesforce platform and integrated with Data Cloud – enables every organization to easily test and monitor AI agents so that they can deploy with confidence,” Salesforce said.
New capabilities include AI-generated tests for Agentforce; sandboxes for Agentforce and Data Cloud; monitoring and observability for Agentforce; and transparent usage monitoring in Digital Wallet. Shree Reddy, CIO of PenFed, said:
“With nearly three million members, PenFed is committed to building relationships that go beyond transactions.
“Through the power of Data Cloud on the Salesforce platform, we’re equipping our member service representatives with a complete, personalized view of each member’s journey.
“With the ability to properly test prior to deployment with Data Cloud Sandboxes, this enables us to provide faster, more accurate support and recommendations that truly reflect our commitment to their financial well-being.”
Keith Kirkpatrick, Research Director at The Futurum Group, said:
“To help engender trust in AI, every business investing in an agent strategy will need to think through how they pressure test an autonomous AI agent that can reason, retrieve data, and use tools.
“Salesforce is instilling confidence by using AI to test hundreds of variations of an agent’s interaction in parallel. With these enhancements and support for Agentforce and Data Cloud in familiar testing environments, this Testing Center will help Salesforce customers manage the unique needs of testing AI agents.”
Sandbox support for Agentforce and Data Cloud, along with Agentforce Analytics and Utterance Analysis, are generally available today.
DevOps Center, Salesforce CLI, and Change Sets support for Agentforce and Data Cloud are also generally available today.
Final Thoughts
Salesforce themselves say that not running the proper tests on AI before deploying it can lead to suboptimal performances including hallucinations and inaccurate results.
It seems that they are aiming to reassure customers that Agentforce is a reliable and worthwhile tool through this “first-of-its-kind” at-scale testing program, which will likely go some way towards reassuring users that their AI Agents are a cut above the rest.
It may also help quell any potential complaints that Salesforce does not provide enough testing tools.