For educators, AI tools are too often vilified as student plagiarization systems – something to fear or be wary of. However, educators using Salesforce are already ahead of the curve in Education technologies – so why would AI be any different? Salesforce, one of the leading K12 CRM platforms, has officially rolled out its best-in-class generative AI application, Agentforce. Generative AI is intended to lighten the load with ethical augmentation, and whose plate is more full than an educator’s? To keep pace with the technology of the future, here’s what folks in the K12 space need to know:
History of AI in Salesforce
Salesforce formally entered the AI domain in 2016 with the introduction of Einstein AI. Einstein was designed to make Salesforce more predictive by automating tasks, analyzing data, and making smarter decisions through the co-pilot chatbot. Many of our education and nonprofit clients used Einstein directly in Salesforce’s CRM platform. Einstein helped with things like predictive lead scoring, sentiment analysis, and chatbots to automate queries and responses based on preset data.
Over the next couple of years, Salesforce continued to innovate and deliver advanced intelligence and machine learning solutions. In 2023, Salesforce made the exciting announcement that they had entered the generative AI space by introducing Agentforce. Before then, most AI applications could only classify or predict patterns based on the data it was fed. Agentforce allows institutions to automatically generate content such as personalized emails, marketing content, and chatbot responses using large language models.
What exactly is Agentforce?
Generative AI can take intelligent machine learning to the next level by creating content based on the information it is given. Imagine a student who has just begun learning to read. After reading many books, the student should be able to describe the structure of stories, craft a scene with words, or understand what criteria establishes different genre patterns. This is similar to how generative AI works – once trained on a vast amount of information, generative AI can ‘generate’ new content geared toward the subjective needs of the user.
Agentforce agents intend to act as artificial assistants. When implementing this new capability in CRM technologies, Salesforce knew it also had to implement ethical guidelines to ensure the work Agentforce produced was intentional and matched the integrity of Salesforce community members. The Office of Ethical and Humane Use often works within the Salesforce platform to develop key frameworks for trusted AI agents. These principles include responsibility, accountability, transparency, empowerment, and inclusivity. Read more about these principles in the diagram below.
How is Agentforce augmenting Ed Cloud capabilities now?
Admissions + Enrollment Management
Agentforce agents are available 24/7 to support parents, students, and staff with questions and updates on admissions, registrations, enrollment updates, and any critical questions they may have during those processes. Salesforce agents can be customized for every subjective student experience and learning path, offering tailored support. Internal teams at different schools can use Agents to streamline support from counselors and advisors.
Fundraising
Agentforce agents can be taught to help suggest best-fit funds or fundraisers to a potential donor based on their previous donations. Agents can walk donors through options via a chatbot, answer frequently asked questions that may get in the way of donating, and connect the donor to the easiest next steps to secure the donation. This whole interaction could then be captured in a record that the fundraising staff could review to gain more insight into their donors and strengthen their future fundraising efforts.
How can Agentforce support K12?
24/7 Student + Family Support
K12 schools can make interactions with students and families more personalized, engaging, and accessible through Agentforce using its natural human language, which uses conversational responses that feel more like talking to a person than a chatbot. Agentforce can create personal learning plans for every student, 24/7 step-by-step guidance on homework assignments, and it offers real-time multilingual communication and Q&A support for parents through issues they may have during registration, enrollment, tech support, you name it!
24/7 Staff + Counseling Support
Agentforce can also provide 24/7 support for K12 staff through the same natural language chatbot, by automating mundane tasks using the prompt builder, and supercharge the counseling department. Salesforce agents can be prompted to act like a team of expert counselors who work together to create intelligent course planning, match skills from CTE courses, create course plans, and generate student-specific counseling plans. Salesforce users with Education Cloud Full Access and the Ed Cloud Generative AI Features permission set can also utilize the Einstein skills generator. With this tool, students can use generative AI to work on resume building and select from courses that have been designed to match their skills.
Optimized Donor Support
Agentforce agents can prepare personalized donor summaries for the fundraising department, guaranteeing smarter fundraising and event marketing. They can efficiently track the allocation of funds by matching contributions with specific school or student needs. Agents can automate communications about events, generate email templates to potential donors, and create personalized thank you messages with updates about future fundraising opportunities.
Interested in Learning More?
For our current and future Education Cloud clients, Agentforce is capable of so much. If your K12 school is already using Education Cloud and you’re interested in the potential of harnessing generative AI like Agentforce, reach out! If you’re interested in learning more but your team doesn’t have the time to dedicate, ask us about our Committed Consulting Services, where one of our team members can help your team step into the next wave of AI technologies.
