Indian companies are moving artificial intelligence (AI) from pilot projects into production, Salesforce executives said, pointing to a broader phase of enterprise adoption in India. The company sees significant “white space” for digital and agentic AI growth as businesses begin using the technology in operational workflows rather than limiting it to experimentation.
Arundhati Bhattacharya, Salesforce’s President and CEO for South Asia, said the shift was already under way. She was speaking in an interview with PTI on the sidelines of the Dreamforce Conference.
The company plans to continue investing in physical infrastructure, employee upskilling and recruitment in India. Bhattacharya said a new Salesforce tower in Bengaluru is expected to come on stream next calendar year. She described the project as a major investment while also pointing to continued spending on developing and hiring talent.
Salesforce’s India investment plans
Bhattacharya said Salesforce would combine internal product development with acquisitions to add capabilities for customers. She referred to the company’s global acquisitions of customer-agent company Fin and data management firm Informatica.
The approach, she said, would bring together internally developed technology, acquired capabilities and Salesforce’s trust layer. The aim is to address security concerns while delivering the combined capabilities to customers.
Salesforce’s President and Chief Platform and Engineering Officer Rohan Kumar outlined the company’s vision for the “agentic enterprise”. He described a 4-layer architecture comprising Data 360, Customer 360, Agentforce and AIforce.
Kumar said enterprises would need to manage autonomous agents as their numbers grow. This includes putting systems in place for security, governance, cost control and monitoring, as well as ensuring that agents operate with the right business context.
He said IT leaders would increasingly be responsible for tracking the number, activity and cost of agents. Security teams, meanwhile, would need to establish agent identities and monitor their actions. Kumar said these responsibilities were already beginning to emerge inside organisations.
Financial services among early use cases
Arun Parameswaran, Salesforce’s Executive Vice-President and Managing Director for Sales and Distribution in South Asia, said companies were moving quickly from AI experimentation to production, especially in financial services.
He said agents were reducing turnaround times in vehicle-loan sales and credit underwriting. Processes that previously took hours or days were being completed in minutes, according to Parameswaran.
The expected adoption path is gradual. Companies are likely to begin with lower-risk tasks, where an error would have a smaller impact, before allowing agents to take on more consequential decisions. Parameswaran described this progression as a normal maturity cycle driven by improving trust, security and contextual understanding.
Skills shift as AI changes technology jobs
The executives also said India’s technology workforce would need to reskill as AI changes software and enterprise technology work. Bhattacharya said AI would increasingly handle repetitive tasks, allowing employees to focus on more specialised and higher-value responsibilities.
She identified AI ethicists, prompt engineers and forward-deployed engineers as examples of newer roles emerging around AI.
Parameswaran said the traditional developer role could also change as AI improves productivity. A task that previously required 20 developers, he said, might be handled by 2 developers in a tenth of the time, although other specialised roles would be created.
Kumar said India’s large developer community could help place the country among the leading markets for agentic innovation by 2030.
The executives made their comments during Dreamforce 2026, organised by Salesforce in San Francisco from September 15-17.
Conclusion
Salesforce’s view is that Indian enterprises are moving AI into live business operations, with financial services already showing practical use cases. That transition is also creating new requirements for infrastructure, skills, security, governance and oversight.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q. Are Indian companies moving AI beyond pilot projects?
Salesforce says Indian companies are moving generative AI and AI agents towards production deployments.
Q. Which Indian sectors are seeing AI-agent use?
Salesforce said financial services was among the areas where companies were moving rapidly from experimentation to production.
Q. How are AI agents being used in financial services?
They are being used in vehicle-loan sales and credit underwriting, where processes that took hours or days are being reduced to minutes.
Q. What is Salesforce planning in Bengaluru?
A new Salesforce tower in Bengaluru is expected to come on stream next calendar year.
Q. What controls do enterprises need for autonomous agents?
They need stronger systems for security, governance, cost control, monitoring, agent identities and business context.
Q. Which new jobs could emerge around AI?
Salesforce cited AI ethicists, prompt engineers and forward-deployed engineers as examples of emerging roles.
Q. How could AI affect developer jobs?
The traditional developer role may change as AI improves productivity, while demand grows for other specialised capabilities.
Q. What is Salesforce’s outlook for India’s agentic AI innovation?
Rohan Kumar said India could be among the leading markets for agentic innovation by 2030.
