Salesforce’s ambitions for a billion-strong digital agent workforce may be rooted in Silicon Valley, but its engine is increasingly powered by India.In an exclusive interview with CNBC-TV18, Madhav Thattai, SVP and COO of Agentforce, revealed that India has emerged as Salesforce’s second-largest base globally, trailing only the US. The company now has over 13,000 employees across engineering, support, and go-to-market functions in the country.
“We could not be more excited about the growth in India,” Thattai said, highlighting a 36% year-over-year market expansion in Q4 alone. “The pace of innovation in India is accelerating in a significant way.”
While global tech giants have long relied on Indian talent for backend development, Salesforce’s India play goes deeper. Thattai pointed to the growing role of Indian developers in building and testing its agentic AI systems, particularly as Agentforce becomes the company’s fastest-growing product.At Salesforce’s recent developer conference in Bengaluru, executives saw firsthand how Indian partners, developers, and enterprises are rapidly deploying agents to tackle real-world business challenges.One such example: Hero Fincorp, a financial services firm aiming to approve 75% of loan applications within 30 minutes using Agentforce. “That is a massive experience driver,” Thattai noted. “It shows how customers in India are tying agentic AI to concrete business outcomes.”India is not just a talent hub — it’s an emerging market for enterprise AI adoption. “We see some patterns in India that are applicable globally,” said Thattai, adding that Indian enterprises are prioritising trust, data alignment, and measurable return on investment.With affordability and scale as key levers, Indian companies are treating agentic AI less as a tech experiment and more as a path to productivity.
