General News
Salesforce and Google Expand Partnership, Introduce Gemini to Agentforce
Salesforce and Google today announced a major expansion of their strategic partnership, delivering choice in the models and capabilities businesses use to build and deploy AI-powered agents.
The AI landscape is evolving so quickly that businesses are struggling to keep pace with innovations like autonomous agents. This expanded partnership provides crucial flexibility, empowering customers to develop tailored AI solutions that meet their specific needs, rather than being locked into a single model provider.
Google Cloud is at the forefront of enterprise AI, with millions of developers using its cutting edge Gemini models and AI optimised infrastructure
This expanded partnership lets Salesforce customers build Agentforce agents with Gemini and deploy Salesforce on Google Cloud. It builds on their existing collaboration, which enables seamless data sharing between Google BigQuery and Salesforce via zero copy technology. This gives businesses the AI, data, and trust they need to integrate autonomous agents into their operations.
“Through our expanded partnership with Google Cloud and deep integrations at the platform, application, and infrastructure layer, we’re giving customers choice in the applications and models they want to use,” said Srini Tallapragada, Salesforce President & Chief Engineering and Customer Success Officer.
“Salesforce offers a complete enterprise-grade agentic AI platform that makes it easy to deploy new capabilities easily and realise business value fast. Google Cloud is a pioneer in enterprise agentic AI, offering some of the most powerful, capable models, agents, and AI development tools on the planet. Together we are creating the best place for businesses to scale with digital labour.”
“Salesforce’s selection of Google Cloud as a major infrastructure provider means enterprise customers can now deploy some of their most critical applications on our highly secure,
AI-optimised infrastructure — with minimal friction,” said Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud.
“Our mutual customers have asked us to be able to work more seamlessly across Salesforce and Google Cloud, and this expanded partnership will help them accelerate their AI transformations with agentic AI, state-of-the-art AI models, data analytics, and more.”
“At Wayfair, we’re deeply committed to using data and AI to create exceptional customer experiences,” said Fiona Tan, CTO of Wayfair. “The Salesforce and Google Cloud partnership, particularly the availability of Salesforce on Google Cloud infrastructure and the integration of Agentforce and Gemini, offers powerful new capabilities to personalise interactions and empower our teams to better serve our customers.”
Why it matters:
Agentic AI isn’t just emerging, it’s already here and represents a $2 trillion market opportunity, according to a study from Salesforce. In fact, 84% of CIOs believe AI will be as significant to businesses as the internet. To fully realise this potential, businesses need an agentic strategy with openness, trust, and choice at the centre.
This includes:
● Data: Highly secure and unified access to all your data, no matter where it resides, with a zero-copy architecture and enriched metadata for deeper insights. This breaks down data silos across platforms so customers don’t have to sacrifice choice for an integrated experience, unlike solutions that hoard data access or require users to cobble together disparate solutions.
● AI: Unparalleled choice and flexibility with leading AI models, including predictive, generative, and multi-modal options. This allows businesses to tailor solutions to their specific needs and avoid being locked on a single provider’s AI capabilities.
● Trust: A multi-layered approach to protect your data and infrastructure with encryption, data residency options, and a choice of infrastructure providers. Additionally, robust guardrails, bias detection, explainability, and toxicity controls are built-in to ensure responsible AI development and deployment.
● Actions: Seamless integration of automation, analytics, and applications across platforms to streamline workflows and drive efficiency across the organization. This allows businesses to maximize the impact of AI agents by connecting them to their existing tools and systems, unlike solutions with limited integrations or closed Ecosystems.
Data: Real-Time Responses in Agentforce with Google Search
Agentforce will be able to leverage Grounding with Google Search through Vertex AI, building on the secure data foundation established through the zero copy partnership between Salesforce Data Cloud and Google BigQuery. This integration empowers Agentforce agents with the ability to reference up-to-the-minute data, news, current events, and credible citations, substantially enhancing their contextual awareness and ability to deliver accurate, evidence-backed responses.
For example, in supply chain management and logistics, an Agentforce agent could track shipments and monitor inventory levels in Salesforce Commerce Cloud, and proactively identify potential disruptions using real-time data from Google Search, including weather conditions, port congestion, and geopolitical events. Availability is expected in the coming months.
AI: Unlocking the Power of Choice and Flexibility with Gemini and Agentforce
Businesses need the freedom to choose the best models for their needs rather than be locked into one vendor. In 2025, Google’s Gemini models will also be available for prompt building and reasoning directly within Agentforce.
With Gemini and Agentforce, businesses will benefit from:
● Agents with multi-modal capabilities: Gemini’s native multimodality lets agents “see” and interpret the world, enabling AI to recognize images (like error codes) and detect emotions in voice. Integrating this into Agentforce creates smarter agents that respond to audio, video, and text.
● Expanded contextual understanding and reasoning: Gemini’s 2 million-token context window lets agents retain and reference massive amounts of information, like entire codebases, years of customer interactions, or product documentation.
● Increased speed and efficiency: Google’s Tensor processing Units (TPUs), combined with advanced techniques like those used in Google’s NotebookLM, enable Gemini to process and understand information with exceptional speed and efficiency, delivering real-time responses even for complex queries. This translates to faster response times and reduced operational costs.
For example, an insurance customer can submit a claim with photos of the damage and an audio voicemail from a witness. Agentforce, using Gemini, can then help the insurance provider deliver better customer experiences by processing all these inputs, assessing the claim’s validity, and even using text-to-speech to contact the customer with a resolution, streamlining the traditionally lengthy claims process. Availability is expected this year.
Trust: Salesforce Platform deployed on Google Cloud
Customers will be able to leverage Salesforce’s unified platform (Agentforce, Data Cloud, Customer 360) on Google Cloud’s highly secure, AI-optimized infrastructure, benefiting from
features like dynamic grounding, zero data retention, and toxicity detection provided by the Einstein Trust Layer.
Once Salesforce products are available on Google Cloud, customers will also have the ability to procure Salesforce offerings through the Google Cloud Marketplace, opening up new
possibilities for global businesses to optimize their investments across Salesforce and Google Cloud and benefitting thousands of existing joint customers.
Action: Enhanced Employee Productivity and Customer Service with AI-Powered
Integrations
Millions use Salesforce and Google Cloud daily. This partnership prioritizes choice and flexibility, enabling seamless cross-platform work. New and deeper connections between platforms like Salesforce Service Cloud and Google Cloud’s Customer Engagement Suite, as well as Slack and Google Workspace, will empower AI agents and service representatives with unified data access, streamlined workflows, and advanced AI capabilities, regardless of platform.
Salesforce and Google Cloud are deeply integrating their customer service platforms – Salesforce Service Cloud and Google Cloud’s Customer Engagement Suite – to create a
seamless and intelligent support experience.
Expected later this year, this unified approach empowers AI agents in Service Cloud with:
● Real-time Voice Translation and Sentiment Analysis: Google Cloud AI in Service Cloud will enable real-time voice translation breaking down language barriers. New agent assist features within the Service Cloud desktop will analyse tone of voice and audio cues for deeper customer sentiment understanding.
● Agent-to-Agent Intelligent Handoffs: Across all channels, virtual agents built on Google Conversational Agents will be able to seamlessly connect with Agentforce in Service Cloud for more efficient management of multi-step, customer interactions. Salesforce and Google Cloud are also exploring deeper integrations between Slack and Google Workspace, boosting productivity and creating a more cohesive digital workspace for teams and organisations. The companies are currently exploring use cases such as:
● The ability for users to leverage enterprise search in Slack to access and act on files in Google Drive.
● The ability to more easily share information between Gmail and Slack, enhancing communication and knowledge sharing.
The result is a more connected and productive work environment, where businesses can choose the best tools for their needs from employee productivity to customer service while
benefiting from a seamless and intelligent workflow across platforms.
Expanding Partnership Capabilities and Integrations
This partnership goes beyond core product integrations to deliver a more connected and intelligent data foundation for businesses. This is just the beginning; Salesforce and Google
Cloud are committed to ongoing innovation and deeper collaboration to empower businesses with even more powerful solutions. Expected availability throughout 2025.
● Deeper integrations across Data Cloud, BigQuery, and Cortex Framework will make it easier than ever for customers to securely ground their AI agents in all of their enterprise data.
● New native Tableau, Looker, and BigQuery integration will allow customers to manage and visualise business data across all platforms in one single UI with standardized business logic and data definitions.
General News
FlashChange Partners Ruth Foundation to Empower Vulnerable Children in Alimosho with Skill Acquisition
In an inspiring initiative to uplift the next generation, FlashChange and Ruth Foundation have successfully implemented the “Orphanage Skill Acquisition Assembly 2.0 program,” a skills empowerment program for vulnerable children in Alimosho, Local Government Area of Lagos state.
The five-day programme, which began on Monday, April 14, was created to equip vulnerable children aged 4 to 18 years with essential life skills such as financial literacy, fashion design, photography, creative arts, cooking, and leadership development
Speaking at the closing ceremony of this year’s edition of the programme, the Chief Operating Officer, Flashchange, Olamide Ajibola said, “We are delighted to be part of this life-changing initiative.
“At FlashChange, we believe that children are the heartbeat of every community, by investing in their development today, we are not just shaping the future of individuals but nurturing future leaders, creators, and change-makers that would make a positive contribution to the growth and development of the society in the near future.”
“Initiatives of this nature gladdens our heart and we are open and willing to participate in them at any time. In the coming months, we hope to do more in that area as our own little way of improving society. This is in line with our CSR pillars, which include human capital development.”
Ajibola appreciated the benefitting children for accepting to be part of the life changing training which has the capacity to catapult them to a brighter future. The facilitators were also commended for impacting the children with the skills and knowledge to help shape their lives.
The founder Ruth Foundation, Itunuoluwa Ruth Da-Silva, in her remarks, expressed the foundation’s deepest appreciation to partnering organizations like FlashChange for believing in the vision and throwing their full weight behind it.
She said, “It will interest you to know that 153 vulnerable children benefitted from the Orphanage Skill Acquisition Assembly 2.0 programme and the training ran simultaneously at Compassionate Orphanage home; Precious Pearl Orphanage; Little Saints Orphanage and House of Mercy Orphanage respectively. Providing the children access to knowledge and skills early in life to create a ripple effect that can transform the entire community.”
The Chief Marketing Officer, FlashChange Jesujoba Ojelabi commended Ruth foundation for the initiative and urged the children to take the skills learnt seriously, as it has the capacity to change their lives for good.
He said, “As a company, we would be proud to lend our support to the foundation whenever we are called upon to do so in the future. My candid advice to you children would be this, to be great ambassadors of this initiative, you need to continuously put to practice the skills and knowledge you have acquired from the programme. We are indeed proud of you all and the success stories recorded so far.”
To support the continuous development of the children the following items were donated; electric sewing machine, cake mixer; packs of Yeye yarn, packs of pins, some stitch markers, scissors, measuring scale, make-up kit box filled with make-up tools among several others.
FlashChange and Ruth Foundation therefore urge community leaders, government organizations, private sector partners, and stakeholders to support programmes of this nature aimed at equipping children with the skills they need to thrive in a world that is evolving quickly.
Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has dismissed the claims that the defunct digital asset trading platform, CBEX, was registered with its Special Control Unit against Money Laundering, SCUML.
However, EFCC stated that ST Technologies and not CBEX registered with SCUML, saying that the certificate didn’t imply clearance by the Commission.
The clarification comes after Lesley Kessy Oviritsa, one of the victims of the CBEX Ponzi Scheme said she fell prey to CBEX after seeing and verifying its CAC and SCUML Certificate.
Oviritsa claimed they had no reason to suspect foul play, especially since they claimed their SEC certificate would be ready by May 2025.
Nigeria CommunicationsWeek reported how CBEX swept over N1.3 trillion from their investors’ accounts.
In a post on its official handle on X on Monday, EFCC said the Commission is not a clearing house or regulatory authority of online businesses.
The post read: “SCUML Certificate Is Not CLEARANCE BY EFCC.
“ST Technologies (not CBEX) registered with the Special Control Unit against Money Laundering, SCUML in line with Section 17 of the Money Laundering, (Prevention & Prohibition) Act, 2022.
“Registration is a statutory requirement for all Designated Non-Financial Businesses and Professions, DNFBPs, in Nigeria in consonance with Nigeria’s Anti-Money Laundering/ Control of Financing Terrorism, AML/CFT regime.
“The EFCC is not a clearing house or regulatory authority of online businesses.
“But financial fraud of any kind is the remit of the Commission, and it is committed to ensuring justice for victims of the CBEX scam.”
MoMo PSB, a subsidiary of MTN Nigeria and a leading provider of digital financial services, has unveiled its Customer Refer & Win Promo, an exciting initiative aimed at rewarding loyal customers with free airtime or data for life.
This campaign underscores MoMo PSB’s commitment to advancing financial inclusion and enhancing the digital banking experience for millions of Nigerians.
The promo offers customers the chance to win incredible prizes, including free airtime or data every month for 50 years for 11 lucky winners, and consolation prizes for 110 winners who will receive airtime or data every month for one year.
Open to both new and existing customers, the initiative encourages participants to perform qualifying transactions and refer friends and family to activate or reactivate their accounts.
Phrase Lubega, CEO of MoMo PSB, emphasized the company’s dedication to customer satisfaction and seamless financial transactions. “This initiative is about giving back to our customers while promoting the ease and convenience of using MoMo for everyday transactions.
“By simply transacting on the platform, customers get the chance to enjoy free airtime and data for life, an offer that truly rewards their loyalty,” he said.
To participate, customers must complete eligible transactions such as MoMo-to-MoMo transfers, other bank transfers, bill payments, betting wallet top-ups, and airtime/data purchases.
Referrals also earn participants an instant 100MB for every active referral. Weekly electronic draws will determine winners, with the promo running for 12 weeks from April 3rd to June 25th, 2025.
MoMo PSB will also engage users through nationwide activations, interactive sessions, and digital campaigns to drive awareness and participation.
This initiative further solidifies MoMo PSB’s role as a key player in Nigeria’s financial services sector, offering innovative solutions that simplify transactions and enhance customer satisfaction.
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