How Salesforce is Powering AI-Driven Customer Growth in India

Kamal Kanth leads the fastest-growing sales team within Salesforce India that helps commercial businesses find, retain, and grow their customer base. He is the second employee at Salesforce India and has played multiple roles in the sales organization and customer segments. Kamal has a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Sciences Engineering from Madras University, India, and a Master’s from the Indian Institute of Science. He has over 18 years of experience in the Technology Industry. Before Salesforce, he worked with Mindtree for 10+ years selling Enterprise software solutions across the UK and India.

In an exclusive interview with CIOL , Kamal Kanth, VP of Sales at Salesforce India, shares insights on AI’s transformative role in business. He highlights how AI is reshaping customer engagement, sales strategies, and automation, with companies aggressively integrating AI to drive measurable impact. Kamal discusses Salesforce’s AI-powered Agentforce, its seamless integration with Data Cloud and Customer 360, and how businesses can adopt AI without technical complexities. Addressing challenges in AI adoption, he outlines how mid-market firms lead in innovation, while large enterprises take a measured approach. Looking ahead to 2025, Salesforce is focusing on scaling AI, expanding data-driven decision-making, and accelerating AI adoption across India’s high-growth industries and how its powering AI-Driven Customer Growth in India. Excerpts.

On AI's growing influence

AI has strategically woven itself into the fabric of our everyday lives. Whether it’s Amazon’s product recommendations or automated email responses- they are all powered by AI, take the case of search, it’s now powered by AI. Given this backdrop, CXOs across sectors are inking an AI roadmap and trying to decode key questions, such as:

• How can we leverage AI  within our organization?
• Can AI optimize our supply chains, sales strategies, or customer interactions?
• What security risks exist, and how do we begin addressing them?

These questions define today’s enterprise AI conversations. Businesses aren’t just following trends—they’re aggressively pursuing AI integration to drive measurable results.

How Salesforce is responding to these disruptions?

At Salesforce, we’re leveraging Agentforce to tackle these challenges. Agentforce is the core AI engine that powers smarter automation and decisions. It blends seamlessly with other Salesforce ecosystems like Data Cloud, which is a centralized hub unifying internal and external business data, and Customer 360 Applications, an AI-enhanced tool for sales, service, and marketing workflows.

The beauty of our approach is its simplicity. Businesses don’t need to worry about machine learning, NLP, or complex AI concepts and we handle all of that behind the scenes. Customers focus on their use cases while our Einstein Trust Layer ensures security, removes biases, and prevents AI hallucinations.

On AI adoption across business segments

Let me unpack the adoption trends on two buckets:

• Mid-market and SMEs often embrace AI early, betting on innovation.
• Large enterprises typically proceed cautiously, testing pilots before full-scale adoption.

Leadership mindset plays a key role: progressive tech executives drive rapid adoption, while others prioritize incremental steps.

Can you give a sense of AI’s impact on customer experience?

It is a known fact that AI is redefining customer engagement. Sales and service teams now operate with unprecedented intelligence, thanks to:

• Automation of routine tasks, freeing reps for strategic work.
• Dynamic lead scoring, replacing rigid rules with real-time AI prioritization.
• Hyper-personalized interactions, powered by pre-meeting insights.
• Targeted coaching, identifying skill gaps, and tailoring training.

For instance, an insurance client struggled when agents faced vehicle insurance queries—they’d redirect calls, losing customers. With AI assistance, agents now resolve these issues instantly, reducing churn.

On the challenges with legacy system integration

A recurring CEO concern: “We’ve invested in CRM and legacy tools—how does Agentforce fit?” Common pain points include:

• Maintaining a robust sales pipeline.
• Unlocking untapped revenue from existing clients.
• Countering disruptors and market shifts.

Our solution bridges internal data with external insights, creating a holistic customer view. This enables proactive engagement and opportunity spotting—no system overhaul is required.

On your priorities for 2025 and outlook

In India, our strategy targets eight high-growth industries. Key 2025 priorities include:

1. Mid-market growth: Rapid adoption of Salesforce Customer 360 in this segment.
2. Data Cloud expansion: Businesses increasingly use it to unify data for AI-driven decisions.
3. Scaling Agentforce: With 5,000+ global adopters, we anticipate strong Indian demand.

We’re also simplifying AI adoption through flexible options. Instead of hefty upfront commitments, companies pilot solutions, and then scale based on results.

Ultimately, AI’s future hinges not on technology alone, but on how businesses embed it into workflows, scale intelligently, and deliver measurable impact.

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