Salesforce advocates AI fluency framework alongside customers

Salesforce has launched what it calls an “artificial intelligence (AI) fluency playbook”, advocating an approach to business AI usage that describes it as going beyond the use of generative AI (GenAI) tools and assistants.

To launch the framework, the supplier’s chief people officer Nathalie Scardino hosted a roundtable with representatives of Salesforce customers. These included recruitment company Adecco, along with an AI-focused software and consulting firm that has come out of Adecco, called r.Potential.

The playbook puts forward a four-stage journey for enterprise AI usage, from tools, assistance and contribution, to being what the supplier calls a “catalyst” for business transformation. In promoting its framework to customers is making a common IT industry play of offering itself as “customer zero”.

Salesforce describes its playbook as a “practical guide for businesses to prepare their workforce to confidently collaborate with AI to give employees agency and drive business impact at speed and scale”.

The supplier contends that “businesses that build AI fluent workforces will drive greater growth and position themselves to attract top talent and become a best place to work”.

It also maintains that employees will benefit, stating that employees who use AI daily report 64% higher productivity, 58% better focus and  81% greater job satisfaction, drawing on a Slack Workforce index study of 5,000 desk workers, published in mid-2025.

The playbook is said to be based on its own experience of using AI agents as “customer zero” for its Agentforce platform. The company stated that 85% of Salesforce employees said they feel confident using AI tools in their daily work, adding that, over one year, Agentforce in Slack saved employees over 500,000 hours, its engagement agent worked with more than 190,000 leads with the sales team, and Service Agent handled two million plus support requests for its customer service team. 

Salesforce defines “fluency” as consisting of first engagement, then activation and expertise, which it describes as “proficiency of human, agentic and business skills that drive successful human+agent adoption”.

Scardino said: “When we get AI fluency right, employees are learning AI, using AI and building AI every day. It has the power to augment human potential in ways we never thought possible. It’s critical to invest in AI fluency, lead with a beginner’s mind and become lifelong learners to succeed in the agentic era.”

In the roundtable session, Scardino said that 85% of Salesforce’s employees are more confident using AI for productivity, a 16% year-over-year increase. “It’s our single biggest change,” she said.

She added that Salesforce found that employees with “managers who model innovative use of AI are more engaged – 22 percentage points more engaged than employees whose managers are not role modelling AI usage from the front. So, the role of the manager is more critical than ever.”

Ali Bebo, chief human resources officer at Salesforce customer Pearson, added: “Today is all about learning agility – human skills like learning, adaptability, communication and critical thinking are so important for the era of agentic AI.” 

In the roundtable, Greg Shewmaker, CEO of r.Potential; and Pierre Matuchet, senior vice-president of IT and digital transformation at Adecco, said successful AI adoption is more about strategy than technology, and that it must combine human and artificial intelligence, giving each their due.

Shewmaker said: “While employee sentiment is improving and people are using these tools and productivity is increasing, at the same time there is conflicting uneasiness, with people concerned about their jobs.

“But the problem is not AI, it’s a lack of articulation or understanding coming from the top down, so there’s a lack of strategy that exists in many companies. One of the barriers is helping leaders to navigate this change so they can communicate to their organisations. I think that’s a big step, and technology is not a strategy.

“The companies that are still treating this like an IT project or software adoption are the ones that are struggling. The ones that are looking at this from an organisational capability creation or reconfiguration [point of view] are the ones that are getting it.

Matuchet said: “It’s very important for AI agents to be in the flow of work. You don’t want to go searching for a tool. That’s the whole beauty of it. The main topic about AI adoption is not to consider it as a technology. The real obstacle is organisational clarity.

“What decisions can be delegated? Where must humans still be accountable? What does it look like when an agent acts on your behalf? Many organisations try to agentify broken processes. This cannot and never works. At Adecco, we have tried to tackle this by fixing and standardising processes first.”

Computer Weekly asked how board-level executives can be convinced to back an expansive view of AI that looks beyond productivity and efficiency, in favour of employees being happy with AI.

Shewmaker responded: “We’ve said, ‘Here’s what your full potential could be’. Imagine a hypothetical state where humans and AI were working perfectly together. This is what you could achieve as a company.

“Of course, that’s not realistic…but it allows them to frame up what they can achieve now, and work towards the utopian state…That has helped to open minds and understand what the opportunities are, but also the challenges to get there.”