Google’s Gemini AI models are coming to Agentforce

Salesforce and Google have expanded their partnership with a seven-year, $2.5 billion deal that could represent a challenge to Microsoft’s dominance in enterprise AI.

Agentforce will gain access to Google’s Gemini models, allowing agents to work with images, audio, and video. More complex tasks can be handled using Gemini’s multi-modal capabilities and two-million-token context windows, and real-time insights and answers will be provided via Google Search with Vertex AI.

There will also be tighter integration of Salesforce Service Cloud and Google Customer Engagement Suite, boosting AI-enabled contact center capabilities such as real-time voice translation, intelligent agent-to-agent handoffs, personalized agent recommendations, and AI-driven conversational insights across all channels.

For example, Salesforce said an insurance customer can submit a claim with photos of the damage and an audio voicemail from a witness. Agentforce, using Gemini, can then process all these inputs, assess the claim's validity, and even use text-to-speech to contact the customer with a resolution, speeding up the claims process.

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Meanwhile, Salesforce’s Agentforce, Data Cloud, and Customer 360 Apps will run on Google Cloud infrastructure, with access to new regions and an easier procurement process through the Google Cloud Marketplace.

Salesforce also said it's looking at better ways to connect Slack and Google Workspace products, such as Google Chat, to easily communicate across platforms.

"Through our expanded partnership with Google Cloud and deep integrations at the platform, application, and infrastructure layer, we're giving customers choice in the applications and models they want to use," said Srini Tallapragada, Salesforce president and chief engineering and customer success officer.

"Salesforce offers a complete enterprise-grade agentic AI platform that makes it easy to deploy new capabilities easily and realize business value fast," Tallapragada.

"Google Cloud is a pioneer in enterprise agentic AI, offering some of the most powerful, capable models, agents, and AI development tools on the planet. Together we are creating the best place for businesses to scale with digital labor."

Partnership marks major Salesforce shift

Historically, Salesforce has been an Amazon Web Services (AWS) customer, but this deal means fewer eggs in one basket. It may also be a challenge to Microsoft, which has integrated its Copilot AI assistant into Office 365 and currently holds much of the enterprise market.

"Salesforce’s selection of Google Cloud as a major infrastructure provider means enterprise customers can now deploy some of their most critical applications on our highly secure, AI-optimized infrastructure — with minimal friction," said Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud.

"Our mutual customers have asked us to be able to work more seamlessly across Salesforce and Google Cloud, and this expanded partnership will help them accelerate their AI transformations with agentic AI, state-of-the-art AI models, data analytics, and more."

According to Salesforce research, agentic AI already represents a $2 trillion market opportunity - and 84% of CIOs believe AI will be as significant to businesses as the internet.

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