Salesforce unveils AI fluency guide for agentic workforces

Salesforce has introduced an AI Fluency Playbook that outlines how organisations can prepare staff to work alongside agentic artificial intelligence systems and adopt AI agents at scale.

The guide sets out a structured approach for companies that want employees to collaborate with AI agents in day-to-day tasks. It focuses on the organisational and workforce changes that sit alongside technology rollouts.

Salesforce positions the playbook as a framework for what it calls the “agentic enterprise”, in which software agents automate routine work and augment human decision-making. The company links AI fluency with business growth, talent attraction, and workplace culture.

It cites internal and external data that associates daily AI use with higher productivity, improved focus, and greater job satisfaction among employees. Workers who use AI every day report 64% higher productivity, 58% better focus, and 81% greater job satisfaction, according to the company.

Salesforce has based the AI Fluency Playbook on its own experience as an early user of AI agents through its Agentforce platform. The company describes itself as “Customer Zero” for Agentforce, and has rolled out agents across sales, service and internal collaboration.

Salesforce employees now work directly with AI agents in their daily roles. The company reports that 85% of staff feel confident using AI tools to drive productivity, an increase of 16 percentage points compared with the previous year.

It also reports quantifiable time savings and workload transfer to agents in the past year. Agentforce in Slack saved employees more than 500,000 hours. An Engagement Agent worked over 190,000 leads alongside the sales team. A Service Agent handled more than 2 million support requests for the customer service function.

Salesforce presents those figures as evidence that AI agents can take on high volumes of repetitive work. Human staff can then focus on higher-value tasks such as relationship management, complex problem-solving, and strategic decisions.

The playbook organises AI fluency into three components: engagement, activation, and expertise. Each dimension addresses a different stage in workforce adoption.

AI Engagement focuses on employee sentiment and confidence. It covers awareness-building, internal communications, and change management that address concerns about AI and introduce its role inside the organisation.

AI Activation focuses on consistent use of AI in daily work. It includes embedding AI agents into existing workflows, setting expectations for usage, and aligning teams on shared practices.

AI Expertise focuses on skills. It covers human skills, agentic skills, and business skills that support combined human and agent work. Examples include learning agility, adaptability, communication, and critical thinking.

Salesforce describes this model as a way for organisations to diagnose their current state, design interventions, and measure progress as AI adoption grows. It separates technology deployment from the development of staff knowledge and working methods.

The launch comes as large employers review workforce development strategies for AI. Many are expanding learning budgets and revising training programmes around both technical understanding of AI and broader human skills.

Salesforce emphasises so-called human skills as critical in an agentic AI environment. It highlights the importance of learning agility, adaptability, communication, and critical thinking as organisations reconfigure roles and processes.

In this context, the company draws a distinction between AI fluency and AI literacy. AI literacy focuses on understanding the technology, its concepts, and its limitations. AI fluency focuses on applying AI in context, collaborating with agents, and integrating AI into roles and workflows.

Nathalie Scardino, President and Chief People Officer at Salesforce, said AI fluency can reshape how work is organised, rather than simply adding new tools.

“When we get AI fluency right, AI moves from a technology innovation into a workforce advantage - it's the difference between deploying tools and actually changing how work gets done,” said Nathalie Scardino, President and Chief People Officer at Salesforce. “When AI is used proficiently, it not only delivers better business outcomes, it increases employee agency, giving people more control over how they work, decide, and create value.”

Salesforce customers are also linking AI adoption with shifts in skills planning. Pearson, the learning and education group, is among those examining how agentic AI affects its workforce strategy.

“We're focused on the most important skills that are needed for today and for the future,” said Ali Bebo, Chief Human Resources Officer at Pearson. “Today is all about learning agility - human skills like learning, adaptability, communication, and critical thinking are so important for the era of agentic AI.”

Salesforce plans to use the AI Fluency Playbook internally and in its work with customers as they design AI training programmes, redefine roles, and expand the use of AI agents across their operations.