Salesforce launches AI ‘Agentforce’ for UK public sector

Salesforce has launched a new AI product designed for government agencies, promising to cut time spent on administrative and citizen-facing work.

The new service, Agentforce for Public Sector, enables departments to deploy pre-built or customised AI agents that can assist civil servants and interact directly with citizens. Use cases highlighted include benefits applications, compliance checks, recruitment processes, and handling public complaints.

The company says the platform is designed to ease pressure on public services facing rising demand and staff shortages by providing “digital labour” to handle repetitive and time-consuming tasks, while civil servants focus on more complex work.

Salesforce is targeting UK government bodies with the system, which builds on its existing Public Sector Solutions platform. The company cites research showing that 84% of UK citizens would be willing to use AI agents to interact with government services.

The technology is already being used in the United States. The City of Kyle, Texas, has deployed Agentforce to manage a wide range of citizen service requests, with local officials reporting faster response times and improved tracking of issues.

Guardrails and compliance

Concerns around data privacy and security have slowed AI adoption across the public sector. Salesforce says Agentforce has been designed with compliance in mind, supporting ISO, GDPR and EU Cloud Code of Conduct requirements, and running on AWS infrastructure.

The system also integrates with Salesforce’s Data Cloud to draw on structured and unstructured data sources, with a reasoning engine that analyses information to provide recommendations. Pre-built actions include tools for complaint management, recruitment, and compliance enforcement.

Agentforce for Public Sector will be available through the AWS Marketplace, and Salesforce is working with partners including IBM Consulting to support deployment in government. IBM says the service has the potential to “transform how every constituent is served”.