As AI climbs to the No. 2 priority for Indian service leaders, Salesforce’s latest State of Service report reveals how digital agents are redefining speed, empathy, and efficiency in customer experience.
NFAPost, Bengaluru: Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no longer just the back-office workhorse automating repetitive customer service tasks — it is rapidly becoming the beating heart of India’s service economy. According to Salesforce’s 7th State of Service report, Indian service leaders now rank AI as their second-highest priority, right after improving customer experience.
The findings underscore a seismic shift in how service organizations view AI — not merely as an efficiency tool but as a strategic co-pilot driving value across customer engagement, employee growth, and operational excellence.
AI’s Growing Role: From Automation to Collaboration
In 2024, AI was a relatively modest seventh on the list of priorities for Indian service leaders. In just one year, it has leapt to second place — a reflection of India’s growing appetite for intelligent automation and digital transformation.
According to the report, AI currently handles about 30% of customer service cases in India. By 2027, that number is expected to rise to 50%, as the concept of the “agentic enterprise” — where human agents and AI systems collaborate seamlessly — takes root.
“India is at the forefront of a service revolution,” said Mankiran Chowhan, Managing Director – Sales & Distribution at Salesforce India.
“AI isn’t just about efficiency—it’s about enabling service teams to anticipate needs, act with empathy, and deliver outcomes that feel deeply personal. We’re seeing businesses—from startups to legacy enterprises—reimagine what great service looks like by combining data, trust, and intelligence.”
This evolution marks the rise of AI agents or digital labor, capable of reasoning and acting independently to resolve customer issues, freeing up human agents for complex, value-driven interactions. Service professionals in India also expect AI-driven systems to boost upsell revenue by 16%, illustrating the technology’s growing commercial impact.
Redefining the Employee Experience
Beyond organizational benefits, Salesforce’s report reveals that AI is transforming individual career trajectories in customer service.
In India, 69% of service professionals using AI reported having a very positive career outlook, compared to just 12% of non-users.
This optimism, experts suggest, is rooted in how AI is reducing routine workload while opening doors to skill-building, leadership, and specialization opportunities. Service representatives are shifting from manual query handling to roles involving strategic problem-solving, customer empathy, and technology fluency — roles that align closely with the digital-first service economy.
Security: A Challenge, but Not a Roadblock
Despite AI’s momentum, security and data integrity continue to dominate boardroom conversations. Half of Indian service leaders surveyed admitted that security concerns have delayed or constrained their AI initiatives. Yet, Salesforce’s State of IT: Security findings offer a more optimistic view — all surveyed security leaders believe AI agents can actually strengthen cybersecurity posture, enhancing threat detection, anomaly monitoring, and breach prevention.
Encouragingly, 90% of Indian service leaders said their AI adoption challenges were “expected or easier than expected.”
This marks a crucial turning point in organizational confidence as India’s digital ecosystem matures and governance frameworks become more robust.
The Rise of Multimodal and Conversational AI
Service interactions are also becoming more natural and multimodal. Salesforce’s report found that 44% of Indian service teams now use AI capable of understanding and generating multiple content types simultaneously, from text and images to voice and video.
Moreover, 90% of voice AI users said that customer transitions from bots to human representatives were “seamless”, enhancing accessibility and engagement — a vital factor in India’s multilingual, high-volume service landscape.
“AI has become an indispensable partner to our service teams,” said Shubham Gupta, VP – Engineering at Porter.
“It anticipates customer needs, adapts instantly to SOP changes, and fully automates routine processes. This liberates our agents to deliver at scale. The true transformation lies in how it accelerates onboarding and deepens customer relationships.”
Heart of Service Summit: Where Technology Meets Empathy
In line with its report launch, Salesforce India recently hosted the Heart of Service Summit in Bengaluru, drawing over 150 industry leaders, innovators, and customer success professionals.
The event focused on how AI, data, and trusted innovation are reshaping service excellence in India — positioning the country as a global hub for service innovation, where technology meets empathy to create deeply human experiences at scale.
A New Era of Service
The Salesforce findings reveal a defining moment for India’s service landscape.
As AI transitions from automating tasks to enabling emotional intelligence and collaboration, the country is charting a new course — one where digital agents and humans co-create customer experiences that are faster, smarter, and more human than ever before.
Methodology:
The insights are drawn from a double-anonymous survey of 6,500 service professionals and decision-makers, including 300 respondents from India, conducted between April 25 and June 6, 2025. Participants represented 40 countries across Asia-Pacific, Europe, the Americas, and the Middle East.
