Agilcon’s Guide to the Intelligence Age: Keynote Speech from AdriatiCON 2024

In the second part of his keynote speech at AdriatiCON 2024, Marko Perme, CEO of Agilcon, outlined four key steps to help your business lay a solid foundation for the age of AI using Salesforce and Gecko technologies.

Driving Your Success: Today and Tomorrow

At Agilcon, we focus on supporting your organization’s two most important groups: your employees and your customers.

If you’ve worked with us before, you know how we start: by discussing your data—how to gather it, integrate it, and make it work for your systems. Then we move on to workflows and processes, helping you digitize them for maximum efficiency. Finally, we bring all this together to empower the people who matter most—your employees and your customers.

We’re taking it further by adding an AI layer to enhance this entire process and deliver an even greater impact.

The Four Pillars Guiding Your AI-Powered Success

From now on, we are focusing on four key pillars, building on Salesforce AI technologies to deliver transformational outcomes:

1. Digitized and Connected Data

Success with AI starts with data. It’s no longer just about traditional transactional data like employee records, customer details, or orders. The game-changer is engagement data—how customers or employees interact with your website, e-shop, or platforms in real-time. Engagement data often outweighs transactional data by 10 to 100 times in volume.

Today’s data landscape is also multimodal, including images, videos, and unstructured data like chats, transcripts, meetings, and documents. By harnessing all these formats, businesses can unlock AI-driven insights and deliver smarter, more personalized services.

2. Digitized Workflows and Process Automations

Having digitized workflows is critical for making AI actionable. Tools like ChatGPT offer conversational capabilities but don’t execute tasks like booking a hotel, placing orders, or qualifying leads.

To truly add value, workflows need to be digitized to enable AI to turn questions into actions and ideas into results. This foundation ensures that AI doesn’t just chat but drives real, measurable outcomes.

3. Reliable and Compliant AI Infrastructure

AI algorithms, like those from OpenAI, are essential but not standalone solutions. AI must integrate seamlessly with business data and workflows while complying with regulations like the EU AI Act.

Platforms like Salesforce and Gecko offer robust compliance support, allowing businesses to adopt tailored AI models for specific use cases like generating marketing content or managing insurance scenarios.

4. Empowered Employees

AI is designed to work alongside humans, not replace them. At its core, AI should act as an assistant or agent that enhances employee capabilities by leveraging workflows and data. These AI agents can take over repetitive tasks, enabling employees to focus on strategic and creative work. This partnership drives productivity and business outcomes.

What Are AI Agents?

“AI agents are a metaphor for bringing technology closer to you. Today, people use workflows and data to get work done. This will evolve into humans and AI agents working together, seamlessly using workflows and data to accomplish tasks.”

AI agents go far beyond tools like ChatGPT.

Autonomy: AI agents can act independently, responding to customer inquiries, sending follow-up emails, scheduling qualification calls, and providing feedback without manual intervention.
Goal-Oriented: Agents operate with clear objectives, such as increasing customer satisfaction or improving employee performance, while adhering to ethical and resource-efficient guardrails.
Context Awareness: AI agents integrate with company data, enabling decisions based on historical information. For example, they can recommend employee goals based on past performance.
Continuous Learning: AI agents learn from every interaction. Whether a product recommendation is ignored or leads to a purchase, the agent refines its strategies to improve future outcomes.

Keep Calm and Integrate Thoughtfully

“There’s no need to rush into every new AI tool that pops up. Instead, focus on laying the right foundation. Embrace digital transformation, centralize your data, digitize workflows, and align your AI projects with real business goals. It’s a process, but those who take these steps will be ready when AI’s full potential becomes a reality.”

Marko’s advice for businesses was straightforward: the journey with AI is just beginning. His key takeaway? Avoid rushing into superficial solutions. Instead, stay calm, plan carefully, and act thoughtfully. Most importantly, be brave and invest in areas where AI can deliver real value for the future.

Want to unlock the real value of the AI age but need help with your data, workflows, compliance, or empowering your employees? Let’s make it happen—contact us today!