Johannesburg, South Africa – June 3, 2026 – Salesforce today marked a significant moment for South Africa’s technology sector at its annual World Tour event at the Kyalami International Convention Centre in Johannesburg, unveiling a series of announcements designed to accelerate the country’s transition to what the company terms the “Agentic Enterprise,” a new model of work in which humans and AI agents collaborate to drive productivity and customer outcomes.
The event brought together business leaders, technology practitioners and ecosystem partners across more than 40 expert sessions. The programme opened with a keynote address delivered by Linda Saunders, Country Manager and Senior Director of Solution Engineering for Africa at Salesforce, Neil Green, Regional Vice President at Salesforce, Trish Vosse, Chief Strategy and Growth Officer at The Courier Guy, Francois Zimmerman, Field CTO for AI and Data at Salesforce, and a team of principal solution engineers including Adeline Cruywagen, Russel Steyn, Gilbert van Erk and Romain Confavreux.
The keynote explored the pivotal moment AI represents for business and the necessity of transitioning every organisation into an Agentic Enterprise, addressing why 95% of AI pilots fail, presenting Salesforce’s Agentic Enterprise Architecture, and featuring a live demonstration from The Courier Guy of agentic deployment in practice.
Attendees then moved into five dedicated breakout tracks covering Innovation and Safety, Technical deep dives, Customer Engagement and Experience, Business Operations and Efficiency, and a session in which customers and partners delivered their own insights through lessons learned and fireside conversations. A series of practical workshops rounded out the programme, covering Marketing Cloud skills development, Agentforce capability building, and a session exploring where enterprise architecture meets business strategy.
Salesforce products now available on AWS Marketplace in South Africa
Salesforce announced the availability of its product portfolio on AWS Marketplace for South African customers, enabling local businesses to more easily access the tools required for their digital and agentic transformations.
The expansion is headlined by Agentforce, Salesforce’s enterprise agentic AI solution, and Data Cloud 360, the platform that unifies data and gives AI the context it requires to function effectively. Salesforce Sales, Salesforce Service, Salesforce Platform, Slack, Tableau and a range of complementary applications are also included.
Neil Green, Regional Vice President at Salesforce, described the partnership as a natural expression of shared values. “Becoming an Agentic Enterprise isn’t something any company does alone. It requires trusted technology, trusted data and trusted partners working together to help customers innovate faster. That’s why we’re so excited about our growing partnership with AWS and what it means for organisations across South Africa.”
Globally, Salesforce has surpassed five billion dollars in lifetime AWS Marketplace sales.
Absa and Salesforce expand strategic collaboration
Salesforce also announced a significant renewal of its long-standing strategic collaboration with Absa. The collaboration will support the bank’s growing focus on artificial intelligence, automation, and real-time data insights to create more personalised and efficient banking experiences for customers.
This agreement extends across various business divisions with broader deployment planned across the Group’s African Regions. The renewed agreement reinforces Absa’s position as the leader in the continent in digital innovation supported by its pioneering use of generative AI.
The collaboration will focus on several key technology capabilities across the Group which include Agentforce, Data Cloud, and Loyalty Cloud.
As part of the extended collaboration, Absa has solidified its trailblazing status as the first bank in Africa to deploy Salesforce Agentforce. This cutting-edge capability went live with “Abby” an intelligent AI chat agent now operating on the Absa Banking App and website, enabling fast, intuitive access to information without the need to navigate extensive content. Additionally, on the Absa Business Banking website, Abby can support customers in all 11 official South African languages.
South Africa at an inflection point
During a media roundtable at the event, Ana Alonso, newly appointed Senior Vice President for Growth Markets at Salesforce, opened by noting that South Africa was her first official country visit since taking up the role. She described the continent as a core growth priority for the company.
“We see Africa, and South Africa specifically, as a growth engine for us. As a company, we are really value-driven, and we want to use our tools, our platform, and our programmes to help young people acquire the skills they need in this AI era. With AI, we could leapfrog and be in a better position to help customers and compete in the market,” she said, adding that customer conversations consistently returned to one theme: the ability to serve customers better.
At the roundtable, Saunders also drew a direct parallel between the current moment in AI and the early days of the internet, arguing that just as sceptics once dismissed the internet as a passing trend, organisations that dismiss or delay their engagement with AI risk being left behind in precisely the same way. She described Salesforce’s mission in the current climate as one of education as much as technology, arguing that building genuine confidence in how AI works is what moves organisations from uncertainty into action.
“Our mission right now is to leave nobody behind. As a company, as a country, as a community, there is an incredible opportunity to truly empower humans with agentic solutions. We have the privilege of working in an organisation that lets us redesign our work and fall forward with how we use this technology, and that experience is what we want to bring to every customer and every community we work with.”
Additionally, Ursula Fear, Senior Talent Program Manager at Salesforce, addressed the workforce dimension of the AI transition, noting that with youth unemployment at 61% among those aged 15 to 24 and overall unemployment at 32.7%, the stakes of getting this right extend well beyond the enterprise.
Salesforce’s response includes workforce development partnerships, rural community interventions in KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo, and a programme supporting 100 students in the marketing and digital skills space. Trailhead, Salesforce’s free online learning platform, was highlighted as central to the company’s democratisation agenda, with approximately 3,200 certified alumni produced across eight African countries to date.
“We cannot navigate this space with all of us being on different islands. Through programmes like Trailhead, we are genuinely democratising access to intelligence, but the holy grail is making sure that a young person, regardless of where they come from, can find their path. Humans have to sit at the centre of this AI journey because it is only by coming together through collective intelligence that we’ll be able to move the dial,” said Fear.
