Salesforce on Tuesday announced the general availability of its AI agent development platform called Agentforce. The offering is essentially a low-code or no-code method for deploying chatbots for employees or customers.

Salesforce says the new platform is already used by companies including OpenTable, Saks and Wiley

“Agentforce does not depend on human engagement to accomplish its work,” Salesforce wrote in a press release related to the news. “These agents can be triggered by data changes, business rules or predefined automations. » The company’s website, in contrast, presents the new offering as a symbiosis between people and robots, declaring: “humans and agents drive customer success together.”

Salesforce goes on to note in the release that “Agentforce goes beyond chatbots and co-pilots.” Although the term “co-pilot” is common parlance in the world of AI chatbots, this can be read as a dig at Microsoft, which released 10 new AI agents for Dynamics 365 just over a week ago. CEO Marc Benioff explicitly called out his main competitor.

The executive recently called Microsoft tools “Clippy 2.0” comparing Copilot to Word’s polarizing anthropomorphic paper clip. Benioff accused the AI ​​offerings of inaccuracies and a “corporate data dump.” Agentforce, it should be noted, is the successor to Salesforce’s similarly branded Einstein Copilot.

AI has become a central part of Salesforce’s strategy, like countless other strategies in the business sector.

Slack CEO Denise Dresser — who joins TechCrunch on stage at Disrupt Tuesday — has positioned her parent company’s AI offerings as the centerpiece of an attempt to transform Slack into more than just a business chat platform . Agentforce is an important part of what Dresser has taken to calling a “professional operating system.”

Tuesday’s general availability includes Agentforce Service Agent, a sort of self-service offering for customers. This offer starts at $2 per conversation. Agent Builder, on the other hand, is essentially what it sounds like, allowing users to create custom agents built on templates.