Salesforce Extends AI Strategy Into HR, Challenging ServiceNow With Workday Partnership
Salesforce today unveiled Agentforce for HR Service, significantly expanding its AI-powered agent capabilities into human resources management. The move represents a strategic push into territory traditionally dominated by ServiceNow, leveraging Salesforce’s existing partnership with Workday to create an integrated employee service solution that could disrupt the $3.25 billion AI-powered HR market.
Agentforce for HR: Turning Slack Into an HR Command Center
The new offering embeds AI capabilities directly into Salesforce’s HR Service solution, which includes both an Employee Portal and HR Service Console. By integrating conversational AI agents into these platforms, particularly Slack, Salesforce aims to transform how employees interact with HR systems.
Agentforce for HR Service includes a suite of out-of-the-box topics and actions designed specifically for HR functions, empowering employees to get answers and take action on their own while enabling HR teams to scale support and focus on complex problem solving.
During a press briefing, Kishan Chetan, EVP and GM of Service Cloud at Salesforce, emphasized the current pain points driving the solution’s development.
“HR teams are overwhelmed with routine tasks that could ideally be automated, taking them away from higher-touch, complex initiatives that drive better employee engagement,” said Chetan. “For employees, getting HR support often feels fragmented and frustrating, with information scattered across portals, intranets, and disconnected knowledge bases.”
The solution allows employees to perform common HR tasks conversationally—right where they spend most of their time, inside Slack or their Employee Portal—without filing tickets or navigating multiple systems. This includes updating employee profiles, managing time-off requests, changing direct deposit details, submitting expenses, and tracking employee programs like onboarding.
Market Timing: HR Teams at Breaking Point
Salesforce’s entry into the HR service space comes at a critical moment. Recent data indicates 84% of HR leaders report feeling overwhelmed and 57% of HR time is wasted on administrative tasks. With AI agent adoption expected to grow 327% over the next two years, HR leaders anticipate redeploying nearly a quarter of their workforce worldwide as organizations implement digital labor solutions.
HR teams spend approximately 60% of their time on administrative tasks rather than strategic initiatives, severely limiting their ability to deliver business value. Organizations that successfully redirect HR toward strategic work deliver 3-4 times more business value.
According to Salesforce’s survey of 200 global HR executives, once agentic AI is fully implemented, CHROs expect an average employee productivity gain of 30% and a 19% reduction in labor costs. This is equivalent to about $11,064 per employee based on OECD average annual wages.
Competitive Landscape: ServiceNow in the Crosshairs
The Integrated HR Service Management (IHRSM) market shows moderate concentration with ServiceNow as the clear leader, particularly among large enterprises. ServiceNow currently dominates, with 85% of Fortune 500 companies using their platform.
Salesforce’s approach differs in several key ways:
- AI-First Design: While ServiceNow has added AI capabilities to an existing process-centric platform, Agentforce was built from the ground up with AI at its core.
- Slack as the Interface: “ServiceNow’s portal-based approach requires employees to visit a separate destination for HR services,” explained Chetan. “We leverage Slack as the primary interface, meeting employees where they already work, which reduces friction and improves adoption.”
- Customer Experience Heritage: Salesforce brings decades of customer experience expertise to employee experience, giving them an advantage in creating engaging, personalized experiences rather than just efficient processes.
- Complementary Strategy: Rather than positioning as a comprehensive solution that replaces existing systems, Salesforce takes a complementary approach that enhances current HR investments, reducing implementation barriers while still gaining AI benefits.
- Workday Partnership: The July 2024 Salesforce-Workday partnership creates an integrated solution that combines Salesforce’s AI capabilities with Workday’s comprehensive HR data, giving Agentforce access to richer HR context than competitors can achieve without similar partnerships.
Early Results and Internal Adoption
Salesforce’s own HR team serves as “customer zero” of Agentforce for HR Service, reporting impressive early results. The Employee Portal with Agentforce has managed nearly 10 million searches, resolving 96% of employee inquiries without HR team intervention.
Nathalie Scardino, President and Chief People Officer at Salesforce, commented on their internal implementation: “The future of work is humans and agents working together. We are leading our customers into the future by demonstrating how to leverage Agentforce to unlock an era of unlimited potential.”
Salesforce’s Broader AI Strategy Takes Shape
This launch represents more than just a new product offering—it signals Salesforce’s determined expansion of its Agentforce capabilities across its entire ecosystem. By positioning Slack as the conversational interface for accessing HR services, Salesforce is executing on its vision of creating an integrated platform where AI agents enhance human productivity.
The move into HR service management also demonstrates Salesforce’s strategy of entering adjacent markets where its existing technology assets—particularly its AI capabilities and Slack—can provide differentiation against entrenched competitors.
During the press briefing, Chetan also revealed plans to expand into IT Service Management with a similar approach, further encroaching on ServiceNow’s core business. “We’re focused on developing a slack-first, collaboration-first, and agent-first experience for IT service management,” he explained, highlighting how this approach will differentiate from traditional ITSM solutions.
For enterprise customers already invested in the Salesforce ecosystem, the ability to extend their existing platform into HR service delivery offers significant advantages in terms of integration, user experience consistency, and leveraging existing skills and investments.
As Salesforce continues to build out its agent-centric vision across more business functions, the true competitive advantage may lie not in any single implementation but in the unified platform approach that allows enterprises to deploy AI agents consistently across customer service, sales, HR, and soon IT operations—all accessible through Slack as the universal interface.
Human Resources appears to be just the latest step in Salesforce’s broader strategy of extending Agentforce throughout its clouds. This positioning Salesforce not just as a CRM company, but as the enterprise platform for human-AI collaboration across all major business functions.
