Written by Jalene Moman, Marketing and Communications Coordinator, The Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce
4-minute read
Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce (WCC): Can you tell us about your role at Salesforce and what you focus on?
Vala Afshar (VA): My current role is trying to connect our innovation champions, customers, and partners to Salesforce services and then advising them on it. I do this through research, mostly focusing on emerging technologies, including cloud computing, mobile technologies, social technologies, the evolution of data, and advanced analytics – but, in the last four or five years, the predominant focus has been on artificial intelligence.
Salesforce embarked on our AI journey in 2014. We’ve witnessed four waves of innovation in artificial intelligence: the predictive use of AI, the generic use of AI, and now the agentic and physical. My research focuses on new business models and how these transformative household technologies shape how we build products and services.
WCC: A lot of businesses are just beginning their AI journey or are already using it but still figuring it out. Across the board, what’s the biggest mistake you see companies making right now?
VA: We’re at a historic inflection point right now. For the first time, we have intelligent, conversational, and real-time systems that can work alongside us. So, the biggest mistake may be the lack of recognition; this is the most important technology in our lifetime.
When I was in graduate school, the web was perhaps the most important technology, because it gave birth to companies like Amazon, Google, and Salesforce. But now, I believe it’s AI – AI is electricity for the 21st century.
When electricity was first introduced, one of the earliest benefits was simple: light. Factories could keep lights on, work longer hours, and be more productive, but that wasn’t the real transformation. The breakthrough came later when companies and leaders realized that electricity didn’t just let their employees work longer; it let them work differently. We had machinery and power to really augment our capabilities.
WCC: One of the areas you advise on is Agentic AI. Can you explain what that is in plain terms, and how businesses can begin implementing it?
VA: The simplest way I can describe it is that it’s a shift away from generic AI tools like ChatGPT, which simply write content based on an input prompt. Agentic AI is more like a digital worker or agent. It anticipates, it has reasoning capabilities, and it can take action unsupervised.
At Salesforce, we believe that an AI agent is an intelligent, autonomous system that acts as a proactive partner. I view my agent as my colleague, a digital colleague, because it’s capable of reasoning, because it can take multiple steps and solve a problem, and it can execute tasks with minimal human intervention. In some cases, no human intervention is required.
So, in a world of agentic AI, businesses now have a hybrid work environment, meaning their people and AIs collaborate and co-create value. And that’s the big difference between agentic AI and generic AI.
WCC: If you were advising a mid-sized business owner today, what are one or two practical ways they could start using AI right away?
VA: My belief is it’s not companies or technology that disrupt, it’s people. When I’m advising an organization, regardless of its size, I want to make sure it has the right mindset. So, I would start with education and recognition of what this technology is capable of. Then I would focus on low-risk, high-value work. To me, low-risk work is anything that’s internal and non-customer-facing, where you can experiment and learn without potentially impacting your customers or partners. For example, if you’re in sales, you can use AI agents to practice your pitches on, and the agent will tell you what you forgot to mention and where to improve. Once you’re comfortable with the internal automation, you can expand into more customer-facing work.
Right now, at Salesforce, we have over 250 AI agents in use. AI has crossed every line of our business. And so, the good news is that if you’re a business starting this AI journey, companies like Salesforce have templates for best-practice implementation guidelines. You’re not doing this alone!
WCC: What should our members expect from you at the April Luncheon, and what do you hope they take away from the event?
VA: I hope your members will gain a better appreciation for this technology and understand that no business, geography, or industry is immune to it.
My one big call to action will be for business leaders to operate like chefs, not cooks. A chef knows how to work without a recipe and how to mix ingredients to create something delicious. Once in my life, I was a cook of sorts, meaning if you gave me a recipe, I did a decent job of cooking something delicious – but only if I had a recipe. When new ingredients were introduced, it was hard to work with them because they weren’t part of my recipe. Artificial intelligence is that new ingredient. Therefore, if you’re a business leader and you’re operating like a cook – using old recipes – you may not be able to create something that has value today.
AI is unlike any other technology I’ve encountered in 30 years as a technologist, and it doesn’t follow the same rules as prior technologies. We all need to get in the game, and I believe Canada is well poised to lead the revolution.
