Salesforce AI Research announced AI Foundry, an initiative focused on developing transformative AI innovation for the enterprise. AI Foundry brings together AI research, strategic customers, and academic partners to develop, test, and validate new AI capabilities designed to move from foundational research to product innovation faster than ever before.
From Model-Level to System-Level AI
For over a decade, AI progress meant better models — bigger, faster, more capable. Salesforce AI Research contributed to many of those advances, from predictive AI that forecasts customer behavior, leveraging models such as Moirai, to generative AI for productivity, like Agentforce for Developers, and finally to agentic AI that takes action on behalf of users.
But as large language models mature, the gap between what a model can do in isolation and how a system is expected to perform in production has become a central challenge for enterprise adoption.
“The problems that matter most for businesses don’t live at the model level anymore,” said Silvio Savarese, Chief Scientist at Salesforce. “They live at the system level, where components work together to deliver accuracy, consistency, and reliability at scale. AI Foundry is the engine we’ve built to make that a reality.”
Areas of Investment
AI Foundry is focused on strategic areas where Salesforce AI Research sees the greatest opportunity for enterprise impact:
Simulation Environments: Agents that learn from experience
Enterprise AI agents need to be tested against realistic business conditions before they reach production. AI Foundry has already developed eVerse, a simulation environment that exposes agents to thousands of edge cases, handoffs, and judgment calls, demonstrating how it is able to increase both capability and consistency in enterprise use cases. Recently, eVerse was used to stress-test Agentforce Voice across thousands of simulated conversations and to pilot UCSF Health’s contact center billing agents.
Ambient Intelligence: Agents that disappear into the environment
Ambient intelligence is context-aware, proactive, and timely. It understands the full situation, anticipates needs before they emerge, and surfaces just-in-time insights. AI Foundry is developing capabilities that embed this intelligence directly into enterprise workflows, with a deliberate focus on human-AI interaction patterns. The goal is AI that’s always on but never overwhelming, helpful without creating information overload.
Agent-to-Agent Ecosystems: Agents that interact on behalf of companies across organizational boundaries
AI Foundry has developed protocols, such as agent cards, and is continuing to invest in building an enterprise multi-agent semantic layer, with standardized protocols, guardrails, decision logging, and coordinated escalation. Working with Salesforce’s legal council, as well as with the Office of Ethical Use of Technology, our research team is defining the legal frameworks required for autonomous agent negotiation.
Research to Product, Faster
AI Foundry brings together foundational research and human-centric design principles to drive real innovation into Salesforce’s product roadmap much faster than the traditional product cycle would allow. “Many of the old rulebooks simply don’t apply anymore,” said Itai Asseo, VP of Salesforce AI Research. “AI Foundry connects foundational research to real business problems by collaborating closely with our strategic customers in rapid iteration cycles.”
The initiative also extends Salesforce’s academic grant program and partner ecosystem, connecting external researchers and cross-industry talent to partner on solving the most pressing enterprise AI challenges.
𝐒𝐭𝐚𝐲 𝐢𝐧𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐮𝐩𝐝𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐬 𝐛𝐲 𝐣𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 WhatsApp Channel now! 👈📲
𝑭𝒐𝒍𝒍𝒐𝒘 𝑶𝒖𝒓 𝑺𝒐𝒄𝒊𝒂𝒍 𝑴𝒆𝒅𝒊𝒂 𝑷𝒂𝒈𝒆𝐬 👉 Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram