Agentic opportunity for Irish business: The time to act is now
As we move from chatbots to copilots to autonomous AI agents or “agentic systems,” AI represents a solution to grow and scale at rapid pace.
By , country leader, Salesforce Ireland
In the dawn of a digital labour revolution, many businesses of all sizes aspire to be AI-driven, especially following the explosion of agentic AI. Yet widespread adoption of AI in Irish businesses remains low at only 6% according to research by PwC.
As the evolution continues and we move from chatbots to copilots to autonomous AI agents or “agentic systems,” AI represents a solution to grow and scale alongside this rapid pace of innovation. Historically, business models have been shaped around productivity and capacity of a human workforce. Digital workers, or agents, are autonomous, can reason and take action alongside humans.
The agentic era has burst onto the scene with thousands of companies deploying fully autonomous AI agents. Agentic AI represents what experts say will become a 6 trillion dollar labour market opportunity. With Agentforce, the first digital labour platform for enterprises, Salesforce has delivered a transformational leap for enterprise AI.
Autonomous AI agents go beyond pre-defined scripts to handle nuanced interactions. They can not only generate content, but make decisions with limited or no human supervision. The move to intelligent, scalable digital labour represents a true revolution. By 2028, Gartner forecasts that 33% of enterprise software applications will include agentic AI, enabling 15% of day-to-day work decisions to be made autonomously.
Across the country and in multiple industries, AI agents are making a significant impact. In customer service, they offer 24/7 support, handling a broad range of issues. For inventory management, they automate tasks, optimise stock levels, and provide real-time insights. In recruitment, they streamline the hiring process by screening CVs, scheduling interviews, and conducting initial assessments, reducing the workload on human recruiters.
London’s Heathrow Airport, through which almost 2 million passengers travel to and from Ireland each year, wanted to deliver personalised support to a growing number of travelers. With Agentforce, it'll provide faster service, cutting call times by up to 40%. Formula 1 is transforming race-day support to scale personalised fan experiences. Agentforce will help F1 turbocharge faster service response times by 80%.
By taking over repetitive tasks, AI agents allow workers to focus on high-value contributions, driving creativity, strategy, and meaningful impact.
Last year a survey of CIOs from some of the largest enterprises, outlined the true scale of the potential. 84% of those CIOs believe AI will be as significant to business as the rise of the internet. Agentic AI represents what experts say will become a 6 trillion dollar labour market opportunity.
It is no longer a question of whether AI agents should be integrated into workforces — but how best to optimise and augment humans and digital agents working together to reach desired goals. A recent roundtable of senior technical leaders, hosted by Salesforce Ireland, found a common goal to be getting the balance of human touch and automation — and ensuring customers continue to feel valued.
Deloitte predicts that 25% of companies using generative AI will launch agentic AI pilots this year. But they must go further, and every Irish organisation exploring Gen AI should, at a minimum, begin laying the groundwork for AI agent pilots in 2025.
To harness the power of Agentic AI the starting point is to get curious and identify areas of your business where routine, repetitive tasks dominate. Ensure your business is AI ready by auditing your data and how it is stored and managed. Most importantly of all is the early involvement of your team to foster ownership.
Finally you don’t have to DIY your AI — with Agentforce, customers don’t need to spend millions of euro and countless hours to DIY their AI. A report from Futurum Research found Agentforce delivers ROI five times faster than DIY approaches while lowering costs by 20%.
The time to act is now. Irish organisations must begin investing in digital upskilling, AI literacy, and pilot programmes to ensure they are not left behind in the agentic era.
