It’s quite difficult to understand what the actual temperature is around Agentforce right now. According to Salesforce, the numbers are good, if not great. But if you were to ask our readers and the wider ecosystem, many would say they’re unsure, fatigued, and holding off on investing in it – and recent survey results from an investment bank seem to back this sentiment.
According to a recent CIO Survey from KeyBanc, many customers aren’t convinced by Agentforce’s value proposition and are “not willing to pay for AI capabilities through their CRM provider”. Now, I can’t say I’m wholly surprised – but is this truly a fair assessment given Salesforce’s deepened relationship with Anthropic and potential new AI strategy?
What the KeyBanc Survey Is Telling Us
Information from KeyBanc’s survey suggests that overall enterprise confidence in Agentforce remains weak, with customers reportedly saying the product “isn’t there yet”. Alongside this, many organizations still lack the data maturity needed to deploy AI effectively, it is claimed.
These findings all reinforce the issues we’ve covered extensively at SF Ben – unclear ROI, technical debt issues, complex implementations, and a lack of compelling enterprise success stories to really convince buyers to invest.
Investors have also expressed concerns about Salesforce’s flagship AI product, with Salesforce’s stock dropping to new lows in recent months. Many analysts question whether Salesforce’s AI strategy can translate into meaningful long-term revenue and justify its valuation.
However, this new wave of criticism comes at a time when Salesforce’s AI strategy is evolving, potentially away from just Agentforce. Rather than centering everything around it, the CRM giant is embracing more of Claude’s capabilities and positioning itself as more of a flexible AI platform, driven by Headless 360.
Headless 360 allows customers to use their preferred AI assistant while Agentforce handles the background work. The flavor of the month right now is Claude’s AI assistant, but this may change over time, and Salesforce is equipped to adapt to whatever comes next.
This does, however, introduce subsequent concerns. CIO reported in May that many customers are wary of Headless 360 due to unpredictable consumption-based pricing and the potential for autonomous agents to generate huge volumes of CRM activity, creating difficult-to-manage costs.
Dion Hinchcliffe, CIO practice lead at The Futurum Group, said: “CIOs have become highly sensitive to unpredictable consumption pricing after a decade of cloud cost overruns. Enterprises understand the strategic power of headless CRM and agentic workflows, but they are also seeing the possibility of runaway machine-generated activity inside core systems of record.” Naturally, this could play a part in these recent survey results, but it suggests that buyers remain cautious rather than completely opting out.
The current skepticism has also fuelled the vibe-coded CRMs debate. Per The Information, some SMBs have already turned their back on traditional CRM options in favour of vibe-coded solutions – likely linked to a lack of buy-in to Salesforce’s (as well as others’) AI strategy.
However, I would analyze this as a short-term fix that doesn’t factor in the risks that come with trying to replicate an entire CRM model through vibe coding.
Salesforce has a history of adapting when markets shift. Their willingness to open a second front for Claude integrations, support multiple AI models, and rethink how AI fits into CRM suggests the company is responding to customer feedback rather than doubling down on Agentforce any further. And I think it deserves some credit for that.
Regarding the KeyBanc survey findings, a Salesforce spokesperson told The Register: “Agentforce is the fastest-growing product in Salesforce history, with customers like Engine, Falabella, and AAA going live in weeks, not months. We’re focused on helping customers move faster, including through forward-deployed engineers and out-of-the-box agents.”
We have reached out to Salesforce for comment.
Final Thoughts
KeyBanc’s survey seems to capture where enterprise sentiment is today, but not necessarily where Salesforce could be in 12-18 months.
Despite this, customers are clearly growing impatient, and the bigger question now is whether these strategic changes arrive quickly enough to win customers back.
