And they're reinventing the customer experience by 2025.
In the first half of 2025, agent creation at pioneering companies grew by 119%, and agent-led service conversations increased 22-fold—clear signs of technological maturity and impact on results. Salesforce's Agentic Enterprise Index documents this acceleration and shows how sales and service are driving the first use cases at scale. Expert coverage confirms the trend and suggests we are now in the operational, rather than experimental, phase.
What exactly changes?
Agents are evolving from “passive assistants” to “autonomous operators” capable of understanding objectives, executing actions within systems, and coordinating end-to-end workflows, with the ability to escalate to humans when necessary. The first to capitalize on this are consumer-facing industries: travel and hospitality, retail, and financial services, where volume and standardization facilitate measurable automation. In travel and hospitality, the pace is particularly rapid: agent activity grew by an average of 133% per month during the first half of the year, according to the index.
The immediate benefit is twofold:
Internal productivity and smoother experiences (which we call the two pillars of digital transformation). In terms of productivity, agents eliminate bottlenecks in repetitive tasks (opportunity creation, reconciliations, reporting, data verification) and act as "coordinators" orchestrating APIs, ERP/CRM, and other tools. In terms of customer experience, they reduce resolution times, personalize responses with account context, and trigger proactive actions (refunds, exchanges, offers) without human intervention. Salesforce's index also indicates that the number of actions completed by agents grew by an average of 80% month over month during the first half of the year, evidence of rapid learning curves. All of this reduces operating costs and frees up team time for higher-value challenges.
To capture value without falling into the trap of “agent washing”, governance is needed.
Forrester warns in its 2026 Predictions that a deployment of agentic AI will cause a public divide and layoffs if rigorous guardrails and controls are not put in place; therefore, it recommends defining operational limits, accuracy tests, and human oversight from the outset. Forrester also includes agentic AI in its Top 10 emerging technologies 2025, highlighting its potential to automate processes, but noting that it still requires greater accuracy, trust, and coordination before becoming mainstream.
In their “AI Predictions 2025”, the message is a reality check: marry data strategy and AI, align business and technology, and rely on partners to accelerate without shortcuts. In customer experience, Forrester predicts that AI agents will transform the contact center workforce: humans will take over managing agents, resolving exceptions, and ensuring business results.
How to get started in 90 days?
- Phase 1 (weeks 1–3): diagnosis of processes, data and risks; definition of KPIs and safeguards.
- Phase 2 (weeks 4–8): building two “thin slice” agents integrated into CRM/ERP, with sandbox, A/B testing and escalation routes to experts.
- Phase 3 (weeks 9–12): controlled deployment, observability and continuous improvement; expansion plan by domains (sales, service, operations) and portfolios.
At Affinity, we help build hybrid teams—human + agents—focused on results, with governance frameworks and executive metrics. If your organization is ready to turn promises into productivity and satisfied customers, now is the time to move.
