A practical guide to Salesforce conversational AI

Salesforce is a titan in the CRM world, no question about it. And with AI being the topic on everyone's mind, they've gone all-in with products like Agentforce and Einstein. It seems like every team is trying to figure out how to use AI to work smarter, not just harder.

But if you've started looking into Salesforce conversational AI, you've probably realized it's not exactly straightforward. The whole ecosystem can feel like a bit of a maze. What's the real difference between Agentforce and Einstein Copilot? What does it actually take to get one of these AI agents up and running? And the million-dollar question: what's this all going to cost?

Let's cut through the noise. This guide will give you a clear, down-to-earth look at Salesforce's conversational AI platform. We'll walk through the features, the reality of the setup process, and the tricky details of the pricing. By the end, you should have a much better gut feeling about whether it’s the right move for your team, or if a more flexible, less complicated solution might be a better fit.

What is Salesforce conversational AI?

A screenshot of the official Salesforce conversational AI landing page, which introduces the technology and its applications.

Let’s get one thing straight: Salesforce conversational AI isn't a single product you can just buy off the shelf. It’s a whole collection of tools designed to automate chats and assist employees right inside the Salesforce platform. The branding has evolved over time, which can make things a little confusing, so let's piece it together.

It all started with Einstein Bots. These were Salesforce’s original chatbot builder, and they were mostly about creating guided, rule-based conversations to deflect common questions. Think of them as the early version, great for handling simple, repetitive stuff.

A screenshot of a Salesforce customer portal featuring an Einstein Bot, which provides several options to a user as part of its enterprise Self-service solutions.

Today, the ecosystem is built around Agentforce, which is the newer, more powerful generative AI platform. You’ll almost always hear it mentioned in the same breath as Einstein Copilot, which is the name for the AI assistant your team actually interacts with. A simple way to think about it is that Agentforce is the engine under the hood, and Einstein Copilot is the friendly assistant in the driver's seat. Salesforce bills it as a "digital employee" that can think for itself, take action, and manage tasks across your Salesforce apps.

Under the hood, the platform uses tech like natural language processing (NLP) and large language models (LLMs) to figure out what users are asking for. Its biggest claim to fame is its ability to use Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) to pull answers directly from your company's own Salesforce data. This deep, native connection is its greatest strength, but as we'll see, it can also be its biggest weakness.

Key features and capabilities

Salesforce's platform is loaded with features, but it's important to look past the marketing and understand how they work in the real world, and where they might not measure up to more nimble tools.

Deep CRM and data cloud integration

The main draw for Agentforce is how it plugs directly into your CRM. It can instantly pull up a customer's entire order history, check on their past support tickets, and use any other data stored in the Salesforce Data Cloud. This allows for some seriously personalized and context-rich responses.

A screenshot of the user interface for Salesforce, one of the leading CRM management tools, displaying its detailed reporting and pipeline features.

For instance, a sales rep could ask the AI to summarize their last five calls with a client just before hopping on a meeting. Or a service agent could get an instant rundown of a customer's past issues without having to manually sift through records. It’s a smart way to get more value out of the data you're already collecting.

But here’s the catch: all that power is pretty much stuck inside the Salesforce universe. If your company's knowledge is spread out across different tools, like internal wikis in Confluence, project plans in Google Docs, or your support operations running on Zendesk or Freshdesk, you’re in for a challenge. Getting Agentforce to access that information isn't impossible, but it usually means kicking off complex, custom integration projects that take time and money.

This is a totally different philosophy from platforms like eesel AI, which are built to connect all your scattered knowledge from day one. With simple, one-click integrations, you can link up all your sources in minutes. This gives your AI a complete view of your business, not just the slice that happens to live inside a single CRM.

Customization with Einstein Copilot Studio

For teams that want to fine-tune their AI, Salesforce provides the Einstein Copilot Studio. This is a separate environment where admins and developers can build out highly customized AI agents. It’s split into three main parts:

• Prompt Builder: This is where you can shape the AI's personality. You can define its tone of voice and the style of its answers to make sure it aligns with your brand.

• Skills Builder: Here, you can create custom actions for your AI. For example, you could build a "skill" that lets the agent look up shipping information from a third-party logistics database or create a new lead in your CRM automatically.

• Model Builder: This tool lets you connect to various large language models from providers like OpenAI, Anthropic, or Google. It gives you some flexibility if you don't want to be locked into Salesforce's native models.

While this all sounds pretty good, the reality is that the Studio is a serious, developer-focused tool. Building a genuinely useful custom agent requires deep technical know-how and a significant time commitment. This isn't a dashboard you can just fiddle with during a lunch break; it’s a full-on development project that needs planning and expertise.

Einstein Copilot is a new conversational AI assistant built into every Salesforce application.

The setup and implementation process

So, what does it really take to launch Salesforce's conversational AI? If you're picturing a quick, plug-and-play setup, you might want to adjust your expectations. Implementing Agentforce is an enterprise software project in every sense of the word.

Here’s a taste of what you're likely in for:

1. You'll need specialized expertise: You can't just assign this to an intern. You'll need a certified Salesforce Administrator or a developer who is intimately familiar with the platform. Most companies find they have to invest heavily in training their team, often pointing them to Trailhead, Salesforce's own learning platform, just to get the basics down.

2. The configuration is long and complex: Building an agent that actually helps your team is a very manual process. It means designing conversation flows from the ground up, writing and testing prompts in the Studio, setting up custom skills, and making sure all your data is connected properly. It’s a lot of painstaking work.

3. You're locked into the ecosystem: The whole system is designed to keep you inside the Salesforce bubble. If your help desk is on another platform or your team communicates primarily in Slack, you're looking at either a huge migration project or a series of fragile, API-based integrations that someone will have to build and then constantly maintain.

For teams that need a powerful AI solution without the months-long implementation headache, there are much more agile options out there. A platform like eesel AI was specifically designed to be self-serve. You can connect your existing help desk, knowledge bases, and team chat tools in a few clicks, getting you up and running in minutes, not months.

Even better, eesel AI lets you simulate your AI's performance on thousands of your past support tickets before you even consider going live. This gives you a clear, data-driven forecast of how well it will resolve customer issues and points out any gaps in your knowledge base. It’s a way to roll out new tech without the risk, a feature that's often missing from massive, enterprise-style deployments.

Understanding Salesforce conversational AI pricing

Salesforce's pricing has a reputation for being a bit of a black box, and their AI products are no exception. For many of their advanced AI tools, the website just gives you the classic "Contact Sales" button, which makes it incredibly hard to budget or plan effectively.

A screenshot of the Salesforce pricing page, illustrating the “Contact Sales” button and the complexity of their pricing structure.

From what we've gathered, Salesforce generally uses a couple of different pricing models:

• Packaged Add-ons: Some AI features, like Einstein Conversation Insights, are sold as add-ons to your existing licenses. That particular one costs an extra $50 per user, per month, on top of what you already pay for Sales Cloud.

• Consumption-Based "Flex Credits": For Agentforce, Salesforce is leaning into a consumption-based model. You purchase packs of "Flex Credits," and every time the AI does something (like generate a response or make an API call), it uses up some credits. From what people are reporting, a single action costs around $0.10, and you can buy credit packs, like 100,000 credits for $500.

These models come with some pretty big downsides. Consumption-based pricing can be wildly unpredictable. What happens if you have a huge spike in support volume one month? Your AI bill could shoot through the roof without any warning. Plus, the price you see upfront never includes the hidden costs of implementation, like developer salaries, training, and the ongoing maintenance needed to keep everything running smoothly.

This is where a simpler, more transparent approach can make a huge difference. eesel AI's pricing is clear and predictable. The plans are based on a flat number of AI interactions per month, so you always know exactly what you'll be paying. There are no per-resolution fees, which means you're not penalized when your AI is actually doing its job well. It’s a straightforward model that lets you grow without worrying about a surprise bill at the end of the month.

eesel AI Plan	Monthly Price (Billed Annually)	Key Benefit
Team	$239	An all-in-one platform perfect for startups.
Business	$639	Train on past tickets & unlock custom actions.
Custom	Contact Sales	For advanced security and enterprise needs.

Salesforce conversational AI is powerful, but not for everyone

There's no denying that Salesforce conversational AI is a powerful suite of tools, especially for companies that are already living and breathing Salesforce. The ability to tap into your CRM data natively is a massive advantage that can create some truly personalized customer experiences.

But that power comes with a hefty price tag, and not just in dollars. It requires a lot of technical resources, a long implementation timeline, and a commitment to a pricing model that can feel both confusing and unpredictable. It’s an enterprise-grade solution that demands an enterprise-level project to get it right.

If you're looking for an AI solution that works with the tools you already use, can go live in minutes, offers transparent pricing, and lets you start automating support immediately, then Salesforce might not be the most practical path. For that, a flexible, self-serve platform like eesel AI is built to deliver value right away, without forcing you to completely change how you work.

Ready to see how simple a powerful AI can be? Start your free eesel AI trial today and you could be automating support in minutes, not months.