Thought Leadership
At its Dreamforce flagship conference in San Francisco, Salesforce introduced a new AI model named Koa. It is designed specifically for customer relationship management (CRM) to handle multi-step reasoning processes and support both sales representatives and AI agents.
Koa was developed jointly with Nvidia, based on its Nemotron model series. According to Salesforce, Koa is based entirely on synthetically generated training data oriented around 27 years of experience with CRM systems. The scenarios are intended to reflect typical tasks such as lead generation, qualifying sales opportunities, or processing support cases across various industries, including manufacturing, healthcare, the travel industry, and the financial sector.
According to company statements, each scenario links a user role with specific tasks and additionally maps the sequence of actions and tool calls an agent requires for completion. In doing so, Salesforce aims to simulate real-world workflows as practically as possible, rather than relying on general language model training data.
Proprietary infrastructure instead of cloud connection to Nvidia
An important point from Salesforce’s perspective is the following: Even though Koa is built on Nvidia’s Nemotron architecture, the model weights reside with Salesforce itself. The model therefore runs entirely on the company’s own infrastructure. This is an argument that Salesforce particularly emphasizes to enterprise customers with regard to data privacy and security.
Rohan Kumar, President and Chief Platform and Engineering Officer at Salesforce, referred to Koa as a potential turning point for complex, multi-step agent workflows:
“We brought this model together, which we believe will be a real game changer when looking at complex agents performing multi-step tasks. When you think of a sales agent trying to figure out what the next best step is to close a phenomenal deal, Koa will help with that.”
Rohan Kumar, President and Chief Platform and Engineering Officer at Salesforce
Already in internal use
According to Salesforce, it is already using Koa internally, including via a Slack agent designed to help employees find information and accomplish everyday tasks. Here too, ahead of the conference, Kumar once again spoke of a “game changer” for internal use.
According to Salesforce, external pilot customers currently testing Koa include the Formula 1 team, cloud accounting provider Xero, Baxter Credit Union, and UChicago Medicine.
(Editorial Team)
