Pravar Gautam, Vice President of Alliances and Channels ASEAN at Salesforce, emphasized that while the opportunities are great for large enterprises, the mid-market is also a very important opportunity for Salesforce.
Southeast Asia continues to actively increase the adoption of AI in the workplace. Despite initial security concerns and the impact of AI on employees, the Agent AI ASEAN study by Salesforce found that AI adoption in the workplace is actually on the rise.
Part of this is due to employees’ personal use of AI tools outside of work. Specifically, 66% of the 4,062 knowledge workers surveyed in ASEAN said that using AI personally increased their confidence in using AI professionally. This trust and confidence is especially evident among Gen Z, with 72% reporting high confidence in using AI at work and 69% saying they trust AI.
The study also found that knowledge workers in ASEAN are willing to collaborate with AI, given transparency and access to high-quality tools. The top three factors that increase confidence when using AI agents in the workplace are transparency and control over the behavior of AI agents (43%), easy access to approved, high-quality tools (42%), and understanding of the skills employees need to develop (42%).
ASEAN growth
This is also one of the reasons why Salesforce sees great opportunity in the ASEAN region. Focused on delivering more value to its customers, the technology company recently updated its partner program to simplify customers’ AI journeys.
In a conversation with CRN Asia, Pravar Gautam, vice president of alliances and channels ASEAN at Salesforce, said that Salesforce is focused on six major markets: Singapore, Malaysia, Vietnam, Philippines, Indonesia, and Thailand. Gautam pointed out that huge opportunities for AI are emerging across all industries and markets within ASEAN, regardless of industry or sector.
“We are seeing concrete traction in several areas, with financial services such as banks, insurance companies and fintechs leading the way. They are all looking to provide a more personalized and customized experience to their customers. And agent AI is perfect for that. combank and Vietcombank. We are working with SingLife in Singapore and BPI (Bank of the Philippine Islands). We are also seeing great traction on both sides of the region in travel, transportation and hospitality,” he said.
In Singapore, Salesforce is collaborating with Singapore Airlines (SIA) on an AI-powered customer service application. He added that Salesforce is co-developing applications with SIA specifically for the airline industry. Philippine Airlines also chose Salesforce to revolutionize its customer experience.
“We are also seeing significant momentum in retail and consumer goods as customer expectations continue to rise. Retailers are increasingly turning to AI agents to deliver a more seamless and connected customer experience, and the same is true in manufacturing. Given the current macroeconomic climate, manufacturers are increasingly relying on AI to improve operational efficiency and build more resilient and intelligent supply chains.”
For Gautam, Salesforce and its partners have a role to play wherever scale, customer impact, or efficiency is needed.
mid-market opportunity
Gautam emphasized that while the opportunities are great for large enterprises, the mid-market also presents a very important opportunity for Salesforce. Because this market is often underserved, Gautam explained that these companies are likely to face the same AI disruptions as larger enterprises. But they often don’t have the same level of resources or expertise to deal with these disruptions.
“This is where our partners can really play a role. From an internal perspective, we’ve aligned our sales and partner teams to focus on the mid-market opportunity. We’ve assembled a set of partners to focus on this opportunity with the right capabilities. From an internal perspective, it’s really about making sure we have the right partners with the right capabilities and the right coverage for this market,” he said.
Gautam shared that the opportunities in this particular segment are also more attractive.
“Because if you think about it, if you have agents who can seamlessly deliver customer service, sales processes, operational workflows without adding a large team, this is going to be a game-changer for these organizations. And they can get the same level of enterprise-grade capabilities from us at the speed, scale and scale that really matters,” he added.
Agentforce is now available in five local languages in the region, so customers can deploy Agentforce in their team’s languages and partners can help deliver Agentforce in those local languages.
“This removes barriers that have existed previously. Partners play a critical role in this market, and this is where they can truly play a force multiplier role. That’s why we’re very bullish on the mid-market opportunity. And when you combine partner reach with platform accessibility, that opportunity becomes very tangible and significant,” Gautam said.
There is a mid-market opportunity for partners of all sizes, and Gautam said Salesforce is currently working on this opportunity with a number of large and mid-sized consulting partners.
“We are also working with a number of resellers that play a role in the mid-market. We are working with managed service providers and we are also working with ISP partners. To take advantage of this opportunity, you need the right type of partner coverage and the right partners with the right capabilities. So we have and have a partner ecosystem in the region to be able to pursue that opportunity,” he concluded.
