Salesforce continues to view India’s startup ecosystem as a key growth driver, especially amid the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence (AI). Arundhati Bhattacharya, President and CEO of Salesforce (South Asia), highlighted India as one of the most dynamic and engaged communities within the company’s global ecosystem.
Recently, the cloud-based software giant held the second edition of TDX Bengaluru, reflecting the increasing impact of India’s Trailblazer community — a diverse network of developers, administrators, architects, IT leaders, and customer-focused innovators. This community has now grown to over 3.9 million members across the country. Additionally, Salesforce’s Indian ecosystem comprises more than 900 partners and 128 active community groups nationwide.
Speaking on the sidelines of the event, Sanket Atal, Managing Director of Operations & Technology at Salesforce India, said that the country’s startup ecosystem is expanding at a rapid pace. “The community has now grown to more than 360, and it continues to expand. Most of these startups are adopters of Salesforce products and are actively building on top of our platform, including agent layers like AgentForce. Many are in the prototyping phase, eager to bring their ideas to market. Some have already listed products on our AppExchange,” Atal said, adding that more than a third of these startups are AI-based.
He also noted that India is now the world’s second-largest startup ecosystem, adding that Indian startups are fully on par with their global counterparts.
As technology continues to advance rapidly, Christophe Coenraets, Senior Vice President of Trailblazer Relations at Salesforce, stressed the need to equip more developers with practical, hands-on experience. “Last year, we went around the country. We had a program called AI Now Tour that became AgentForce Now Tour, which was essentially full-day hands-on workshops, and also to enable Indian developers with brand new technology. In addition to that, this community is incredible because it kind of self-organises. We have a lot of events that are led by people in the community, and the job of my team and Salesforce in general is to empower these people,” he stated.
At present, autonomous agents are responsible for generating 30% of the code at Salesforce, and the company anticipates this number could increase to as much as 50% by the end of the year.
Last year, Salesforce introduced Agentforce, its autonomous AI application developed to offer tailored support to both employees and customers. The tool functions across various communication channels and is capable of engaging in natural language conversations 24/7. It includes built-in security guardrails and can escalate issues to human staff when necessary. Additionally, Salesforce runs Trailhead, its online learning platform designed to help users enhance their skills.
