This year’s Dreamforce Service Keynote centered on one big idea: Proactive Service.
For years, service teams have debated the merits of reactive vs. proactive support, and while everyone agrees on which approach is better, actually achieving it has always been easier said than done. And before you think this is just another Agentforce pitch (or another rename, IYKYK), Salesforce did have something new to show. They unveiled Agentforce for Service as the latest evolution of Service Cloud.
From Reactive to Proactive
Customer expectations have changed dramatically. As with any transaction, people now want personalized service before, during, and after a purchase (bonus points if you can do that across every channel, 24/7!). But how can businesses meet that demand? Hiring more and more service reps isn’t the only answer, as it’s neither realistic nor scalable. And traditional automation hasn’t been flexible enough to handle complex service scenarios.
This is where Agentforce Service takes the spotlight. It’s the most logical evolution of Service Cloud in today’s AI-driven age. Built on the same unified Salesforce platform, your existing configurations, workflows, and data are ready for AI agents from day one. These agents can resolve issues, surface insights, and seamlessly hand off to human agents when needed – all with full context.
For Service Leaders: Command Center for Service
For service leaders, Salesforce introduced the Command Center for Service, which is a real-time control hub that brings every interaction, whether handled by humans or AI, into one place.
The Command Center provides visibility into customer signals (like sentiment, case volume, or contact drivers) across all channels, whether that’s email, chat, voice, surveys, and more. It turns these signals into actionable insights so leaders can shift from being reactive to proactive.
PepsiCo was the headline example of an Agentic Enterprise. The company uses the Command Center to monitor and act on service trends across its global contact centers. By connecting their AI and human agents, PepsiCo has reduced inefficiencies and transformed contact centers into growth engines rather than cost centers.
AI agents can also raise a red flag in the Command Center, just like human reps. This immediately grabs your attention, so humans can step in when needed. It’s a solid example of how using AI in Service doesn’t actually mean replacing people – rather, it’s about empowering them to deliver quality service.
With Agentforce Voice also supported in the Command Center, managers can listen in as Agentforce Voice assists customers over the phone, with transcripts updating in real time. It’s basically the ultimate visibility tool – one that truly empowers managers to guide, support, and improve their teams.
For Service Reps: Agentforce Service Console
It’s the same Service Console we’ve all known and loved, but this time it’s been rebranded and redesigned to Agentforce Service Console – the ultimate workspace to empower “super reps”.
Reps now have a single view of the customer, with contextual insights, transcripts, and product details surfaced automatically. It’s built for complexity, so agents are guided when solving complicated cases, and they have all the tools they need right in front of them. The new Service Rep Assistant sits beside them, proactively verifying warranties, checking product registrations, and recommending next steps.
The screenshot above shows how a service rep can see everything Agentforce Voice gathered from the customer before transferring the call to a human – all while the Service Rep Assistant sits on the right-hand side, proactively verifying the information and suggesting the next best step. This results in less time spent gathering context or manually searching for resources, and more focus on actually solving the issue.
This demo stood out because it involved an unknown error code: something that didn’t exist in any knowledge base or documentation. With AI’s help, the Service Rep Assistant searched through past cases to find how similar issues were resolved, and applying that solution worked. There was no need to wait for an expert or escalate to higher-tier support. Having experienced being a support agent myself before, I know this pain point all too well. I’ve had cases sit in my tray for months because of undocumented or unclear error codes.
Once that was resolved, the assistant recommended swarming with experts for visibility, verifying and reviewing the case, codifying the new error, and creating a knowledge article so future agents (or AI agents) could resolve it faster next time. At that point, experts also have the opportunity to design an isolated fix or patch without the usual back-and-forth between teams. All that just from being in the swarm and reviewing the case interaction! Wow.
For the Customer: Agentforce Service Portal
Next came Southwest Airlines, a company known for its great customer service. Their story showcased how Agentforce powers a seamless, conversational self-service experience.
Through the Agentforce Service Portal, customers can now chat naturally to get personalized recommendations, access travel information, and even book flights directly within the conversation. Behind the scenes, Data Cloud (oh wait, it’s Data 360 now) unifies flight history, preferences, and loyalty data to make each interaction feel human and relevant.
Agentforce also sends proactive messages like travel reminders, upgrade options, and airport guides! This is another example of proactive service where the traveler’s needs were already anticipated before they even asked.
Southwest’s leadership explained how AI has allowed their service team to focus on complex cases while letting the system handle straightforward ones automatically. They’re even exploring proactive outreach – as in reaching out to customers first when an issue is detected.
For the Admins: Agentforce Service Setup
As for our beloved Salesforce Admins, this keynote finally gave them the spotlight. Admins wear so many hats within a business, and they’re always expected to deliver everything — and fast. Agentforce Service Setup is a new, smart, guided, and AI-driven way to configure and manage service capabilities, all built with admins in mind.
During a live demo, Christina Nava from Gaggle (and a nine-time certified Trailblazer) walked through how the new Setup experience surfaces relevant features, explains their business impact, and helps you activate them with just a few clicks.
So if you’re an admin who’s used to jumping across dozens of setup screens, that changes now, because everything happens in one intuitive interface. And being an admin isn’t just about turning features on – even before setup, a lot of time goes into researching which features will actually help. With Agentforce Service Setup, that process becomes much easier, as it can even highlight which users will benefit most from each feature and why.
Nava summed it up perfectly:
“Less digging, more doing.” Christina Nava, Gaggle
The Future of Service
Customer service today is more challenging than ever, and it’s not because customers are harder to please. Today’s customers are AI-savvy, meaning they’ve already tried self-service tools, AI chatbots, or generative assistants before even contacting support. That means service teams need to be better than what the customer can already do on their own. The bar has never been higher! And that’s exactly why the idea of proactive, data-driven service is so critical right now.
Dreamforce 2025 made it clear with the rebrands that the future of service is agentic. It’s fighting off the mindset that AI is replacing the human touch by showing us that it’s amplifying it instead. Can AI and humans really work harmoniously side by side to deliver exceptional, proactive service?
PepsiCo’s story was a clear statement that transformation is possible for any business. And if a century-old(!) company can evolve into an agentic enterprise operating at a global scale, then anyone can.
It’s a timely reminder (especially for markets like the Philippines, where some of the oldest and most established companies can also be the most resistant to change) that there’s comfort in tradition, but growth now demands adaptability. And this resistance isn’t unique to one country because it’s a global pattern.
Final Thoughts
One of the standout lines from the Service keynote was,
“Lead with data, not gut feel.”
It perfectly captures the mindset Salesforce is encouraging with Agentforce and Data 360. Decisions are done best when they don’t rely on intuition, because they should be backed by real-time insights. That could be by identifying trends, spotting potential issues, or predicting customer needs. Whichever it may be, it’s the data that should guide the action.
What Salesforce is really pushing here goes beyond releasing a new set of tools because it’s more of a mindset shift. If you look at all the name changes and rebrands thus far, this translates to everything else Salesforce, not just with Service Cloud.
As AI continues to evolve, perhaps the better question isn’t “What can AI or Agentforce do?” but how far humans can go with it by their side.
