Salesforce Inc. said today its agentic artificial intelligence platform Agentforce is now available for government agencies, giving them access to a digital workforce of intelligent AI agents that can work autonomously without human supervision.

Agentforce for Public Sector is available from today, and will enable government offices to automate tedious manual tasks currently performed by humans, speeding up their responsiveness so they can better serve the public, the company said.

Salesforce’s Agentforce platform has been available to private companies for several months already, giving them a suite of tools for building, customizing and deploying AI agents to augment the work done by human employees. AI agents are goal-oriented software systems designed to perform tasks such as data entry, reviewing tickets, answering phone calls and drafting reports, among many other types of work.

Unlike the standard Agentforce platform, Agentforce for Public Sector adheres to much more stringent compliance requirements, being FedRAMP High, Protected-B and IRAP-certified. It runs on Amazon Web Services Inc.’s cloud infrastructure, and can be found via the AWS Marketplace.

With Agentforce for Public Sector, government agencies finally get the ability to embrace AI-powered automation, with tools for deploying out-of-the-box AI agents or customizing their own. The agents will be able to handle various types of work autonomously, Salesforce said, such as responding to common citizen queries and processing license renewals.

Digital labor that’s ready to serve

The platform is powered by Salesforce’s Atlas Reasoning Engine, which acts as the “brain” of Agentforce AI agents, processing and analyzing complex data from numerous sources to generate predictive insights, actionable recommendations and even make informed decisions. Atlas uses techniques including retrieval-augmented generation to enhance the knowledge of its agents, allowing them to pull in live data in real time, so they always have access to the most up-to-date information.

Another key component of the Agentforce platform is the Salesforce Data Cloud, which acts as the “connective tissue,” linking AI agents to dozens of structured and unstructured data sources, so they can tap into applications, systems, databases, emails, images, video streams, PDF files and more. Meanwhile, the Trust Layer ensures the privacy and security of sensitive data with features such as dynamic grounding, zero data retention and toxicity detection.

Users will be able to customize dozens of out-of-the-box agents for specific government workloads using natural language instructions only, eliminating the need for coding skills. These agents can then be further customized by connecting them to a library of prebuilt “actions” that take advantage of existing logic built into systems such as the Salesforce Customer Relationship Management platform, Flows, Apex, MuleSoft and more.

These actions, which are tasks that agents can perform, can be adapted to suit different departments and organizational processes in order to take the strain off of human workers, who often find themselves overwhelmed with mundane work, Salesforce said.

For instance, an AI agent can be programmed to support compliance teams by recommending specific code violations, flagging violations, creating documentation and assisting with regulatory fee calculations. Alternatively, an agency that deals with complaints from citizens might use digital workers to analyze them and surface any common or recurring issues and identify why they’re problematic, before coming up with recommendations on how to deal with the issue. Agents can also help government agencies to speed up their recruiting processes by matching candidate resumes to open positions and automation engagement. Recruiters will be able to generate an instant summary of each candidate’s qualifications and share them with hiring managers.

Other agents can be employed to help citizens apply for benefits for which they’re eligible to receive. They’ll interact with citizens in a conversational way, responding to questions and providing useful advice on eligibility criteria, to ensure those citizens who need assistance get it as quickly as possible.

Government services 24/7

Salesforce said the launch of Agentforce for Public Sector is timely, because government leaders are clamoring to adopt AI systems that can help them provide more efficient services, similar to how private enterprises have already embraced efficiency-boosting AI automation. In a recent study, it was found that 64% of government leaders globally expect to see significant cost savings and efficiency gains through the use of AI.

According to one of Salesforce’s own studies, 90% of citizens say they’re open to AI automation in government, despite persistent concerns around data privacy and security.

The City of Kyle, Texas, was one of the earliest adopters of Agentforce for Public Sector, and has successfully deployed AI agents to create a more scalable and centralized service model for its citizens.

Jesse Elizondo, an assistant city manager at the City of Kyle, said constituents can enjoy a more seamless experience when they contact their local government, with instantaneous responsiveness and easy tracking of service requests, whether they’re reporting a pothole or inquiring about the outcome of a council meeting. “Agentforce has greatly enhanced our ability to deliver an exceptional customer experience, work more efficiently, and drive cost containment. It’s like having every aspect of town hall instantly accessible 24/7,” he said.

Nasi Jazayeri, Salesforce’s executive vice president and general manager of public sector, said AI will lead to more intelligent, proactive and efficient government services that are more responsive to the needs of constituents.

“Agentforce for Public Sector makes this future possible by integrating trusted, secure AI into the fabric of government operations,” he said. “With AI agents working alongside dedicated government workers and providing 24/7 support for constituents, Agentforce will power a more responsive, agile and effective government.”

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