Telecom
Salesforce Unveils Einstein Service Agent an Autonomous AI Agent which would Revolutionise Chatbot Experiences
Salesforce on Friday announced Salesforce’s first fully autonomous AI agent. Einstein Service Agent makes conventional chatbots obsolete with its ability to understand and take action on a broad range of service issues without preprogrammed scenarios, helping make customer service far more efficient.
Unlike traditional chatbots — which can only handle specific queries that have been explicitly programmed into their system and don’t understand context or nuance — Einstein Service Agent is intelligent and dynamic. Built on the Einstein 1 Platform, Einstein Service Agent interacts with large language models (LLMs) by analysing the full context of the customer’s message and then autonomously determining the next actions to take.
It uses generative AI to create conversational responses — grounding its responses in a company’s trusted business data, including Salesforce CRM data — tailored to a company’s brand voice, tone, and guidelines with a few clicks. For service organisations, this means they can offload a large number of tedious inquiries that bog down their productivity so they can focus on tasks that require a human touch. For customers, this means they get the answers they need much faster because they no longer need to wait for human agents.
Einstein Service Agent is standing ready 24/7 to communicate with customers in natural language, respond across self-service portals and messaging channels, and perform tasks proactively while operating within clear guardrails that companies can define using the Einstein 1 Platform. And when more complicated, high-touch issues arise, requiring escalation to a human worker based on the parameters set by the company, Einstein Service Agent performs the handoff quickly and easily.
Currently in pilot and generally available later this year, Einstein Service Agent can be set up in minutes with user-friendly interfaces, pre-built templates, and low-code actions and workflows.
“Salesforce is delivering a future where human and digital agents join forces to improve the customer experience,” said Linda Saunders, Head Solution Engineering for Africa. “Einstein Service Agent, our first fully autonomous AI agent, will not just complete service jobs on its own; it will augment how human agents work and completely transform how service teams operate, making them far more efficient and productive. We are reimagining customer service for the AI era.”
Studies show most companies use chatbots today, but 81% of customers would rather wait to speak to a live agent because the current generation of chatbots aren’t meeting their expectations and the experience can be frustrating. Yet, 61% of customers say they’d rather use self-service to resolve simple issues, underscoring an opportunity and need to deliver more intelligent, autonomous agents powered by generative AI.
Einstein Service Agent has fluid, intelligent conversations with customers. It uses its reasoning engine to interpret and process information to provide answers and solve problems for customers. The advanced reasoning engine interacts with LLMs by analysing the full context of the customer’s input to understand their intent, drawing logical inferences from the data, and connecting various pieces of information to determine the right set of actions to take.
Einstein Service Agent executes those actions and uses generative AI to create responses that align with a company’s brand voice, tone, and guidelines.
Einstein Service Agent grounds its responses in a company’s trusted business data, including Salesforce CRM data. Using Data Cloud and Unified Knowledge, companies can even integrate data and knowledge from third-party systems, like SharePoint, Confluence, Google Drive, and company websites and files, to help Einstein Service Agent generate accurate responses that are personalised to every customer’s specific needs and preferences.
Einstein Service Agent is built on the Einstein 1 Platform and leverages the Einstein Trust Layer to perform functions like masking personally identifiable information (PII) and defining clear parameters and guardrails for Einstein Service Agent to follow.
Einstein Service Agent doesn’t require thousands of lengthy structured dialogues for setup. It can be turned on in minutes with its out-of-the-box templates, Salesforce components, and an LLM. Companies can even reuse existing Salesforce objects, like flows, Apex code, and prompts, to equip Einstein Service Agent with skills faster and create custom actions that are specific to their business needs using a low-code builder and natural language instructions to save time and money.
Einstein Service Agent can assist customers anytime across self-service portals and messaging channels, like WhatsApp, Apple Messages for Business, Facebook Messenger, and SMS. Because Einstein Service Agent understands text, images, video, and audio, customers can send photos when their issue is too difficult to explain in words.
If an inquiry is off topic or falls outside of Einstein Service Agent’s scope, it will easily transfer the conversation to a human agent using Service Cloud. The human agent will have full context of the conversation and can pick up where Einstein Service Agent left off without asking the customer to repeat themselves.
Telecommunication companies have threatened to withdraw their Unstructured Supplementary Services Data (USSD), services from banks over what they called misinformation.
MTN Nigeria, Airtel, Globacom and 9Mobile- the telcos disclosed that the banks’ notice to their customers on the new billing system and airtime deductions for USSD services was misleading.
Also, Association of Licensed Telecom Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) also denied that the directive was from the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
USSD is done via shortcodes on mobile phones and allows bank customers to make transactions in places with limited or no internet service.
Recall that banks earlier this week claimed that NCC has directed them to begin charging them from their airtime rather than from customers’ accounts.
The notice from the banks read in part: “In line with the directive of the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), please be informed that effective June 3, 2025, charges for USSD banking services will no longer be deducted from your bank account.
“Going forward, these charges will be deducted directly from your mobile airtime balance in accordance with the NCC’s End-User Billing (EUB) model.
“Under this new billing structure, each USSD session will attract a charge of ?6.98 per 120 seconds, which will be billed by your mobile network operator.
“You will receive a consent prompt at the start of each session, and airtime will only be deducted upon your confirmation and availability of the bank to fulfil this service.
“If you do not wish to continue using USSD banking under this new model, you may choose to discontinue use of the USSD channel.”
Reacting, ALTON, umbrella body of telecom operators in Nigeria, said the banks’ notice is a gross misinformation deliberately hatched to suit their selfish interests.
Hence they threatened to withdraw network support to the banks’ USSD services.
Engr Gbenga Adebayo, chairman of ALTON told Vanguard: ” I don’t understand why the banks are twisting agreements and distorting information just to favour their selfish interests. In the first place, the information wasn’t a directive from the NCC but a joint regulatory agreement between the NCC and the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN witnessed by the telcos and the banks. The agreement was that if the banks finally cleared all USSD debts owed to the telcos by June 2, 2025, they are free to migrate to the end-user billing method, so long as the model of migration is transparent and agreed upon by the telcos.
“The reason for that clause was because the telcos insisted that the process of migration is such that will not allow a customer to be billed twice; in other words, that a subscriber would not have his airtime deducted and also have his or her money deducted for same services from his or her bank account.
” As we speak, some of the banks have cleared their debts, but the majority are yet to do so. So, even if all the modalities of migrating to end-user billing have been perfectly carried out, the implementation cannot even begin because the banks are yet to clear the USSD debt owed to the telcos.
“Our position now is that if that is the way the banks want to treat the agreement, we may withdraw support for their USSD services. It is not a must-have. They can do without it. But, they should clear the debts as agreed,” he added.
MTN Nigeria has announced plans to embark on a massive capital expenditure (CAPEX) drive in 2025, committing nearly N900 billion to significantly enhance network service quality across Nigeria.
Dr. Karl Toriola, CEO, MTN Nigeria,
The substantial investment, more than double the combined CAPEX of approximately N440 billion spent in 2023 and 2024, underscored MTN’s aggressive strategy to address persistent service quality issues and meet growing customer and regulatory expectations.
Dr. Karl Toriola, CEO, MTN Nigeria, detailed this unprecedented financial commitment during a recent interview on Arise TV, emphasizing that improving service quality is the company’s paramount message for the year.
He highlighted a clear understanding and expectation from both the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and security agencies for improved network quality.
A primary focus of this increased CAPEX will be on putting additional capacity in a city like Lagos, particularly in Abuja, where you have a lot of buildings coming up, you need additional sites because there are coverage issues.
Beyond these critical urban centers, the investment aims to bolster network resilience and ensure power stability for its infrastructure nationwide.
This includes proactively addressing site outages by ensuring timely payment for operational necessities such as diesel for generators, a persistent challenge in the Nigerian operating environment.
Toriola outlined a comprehensive upgrade process, which involves placing orders formally, opening letters of credit, and then the equipment gets shipped in and installed.
He added that MTN will be acquiring new sites and laying fiber to the base station to create better stability” where necessary.
While the immediate CAPEX is geared towards improving existing service quality and capacity, this investment aligns with MTN’s broader goals of enhancing financial inclusion in underserved rural areas, suggesting a long-term vision for network expansion and service improvement that extends beyond metropolitan areas.
Subscribers can anticipate tangible improvements in service quality, with a significant improvement in quality of service expected by the end of the second quarter or early in the third quarter of 2025, according to Toriola.
“This year is all going to be about capital expenditure on an aggressive basis to fix quality of service issues (and) meet both the regulators’ and the public’s expectations,” he affirmed, reiterating MTN’s steadfast focus on customer experience through substantial capital investment.
Telecom regulators and industry leaders from across the Middle East and Africa gathered in Cairo last week to chart a data-driven future for the region.
In a region where digital transformation is accelerating at unprecedented speed, connectivity intelligence firm, Ookla and Egypt’s National Telecom Regulatory Authority (NTRA) joined forces to organise the Telecommunications Regulatory Summit
Themed ‘Harnessing Data and Technology for Superior QoS’, the summit focused on how data, particularly crowdsourced insights, can transform regulatory strategies across the region.
The summit attracted stakeholders from over 30 countries, including delegates from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and World Broadband Association (WBBA), who engaged in high-level discussions on optimising network performance and accelerating digital inclusion.
Karim Yaici, lead industry analyst for the Middle East and Africa at Ookla, said the event set the tone for the growing value of data-driven decision-making.
“Access to and the use of crowdsourced data contribute to making more informed decisions, fostering transparency and ensuring that citizens in the MEA region benefit from high-quality, accessible and affordable connectivity,” he said.
The experts underlined that crowdsourced data is becoming a critical complement to traditional regulatory methods.
They agreed that it helps identify service gaps, prioritise infrastructure investments, and drive innovation.
With broadband speeds now closely tied to GDP growth and productivity, accurate performance data is seen as key to socio-economic advancement.
Dr. Hossam Abdel-Mawla, vice-president of technical affairs and quality of service at NTRA, stressed that the summit was pivotal in fostering regional collaboration.
“By actively sharing best practices and exploring innovative data-driven strategies, we are shaping a future where telecom regulations ensure digital inclusion and economic growth across the region,” he said.
In a key session, Ahmed Nabawy, director of client services at Ookla, presented findings on 5G performance in Egypt and Tunisia.
He demonstrated how Ookla’s unified data platform, powered by AI, enables operators to analyse 5G-capable device density and prioritise high-impact rollout areas.
The summit also explored the shift from conventional network quality metrics to more user-centric Quality of Experience models. These advanced analytics tools promise to enhance transparency, improve accountability, and ultimately deliver better connectivity experiences for all.
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