Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Joshua Birk, Senior Director of Admin Evangelism at Salesforce. Join us as we chat about how to get started with Agent Script and how it helps admins build better AI agents.
You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Joshua Birk.
Big changes are coming to how admins build AI agents with Salesforce, and so I’ve brought Josh Birk on the pod to help us understand what’s going on with the new Agentforce Builder.
There are backend updates to the Atlas Reasoning Engine, but Agent Script is where the rubber meets the road for admins. It’s a simple, high-level scripting language that lets you create complex instructions and actions for your agent to follow. Agent Script puts the human in the loop for all the little decisions an AI makes, helping you build more predictable and reliable agentic solutions.
If you’re comfortable with coding, you can pop open the hood with Script view, but there’s also a visual Canvas view to help you see how things fit together and make the changes you want. And as always, you can just tell the Agentforce assistant what you want your agent to be able to do, and it’ll list out suggestions for you to accept or decline.
The biggest question most admins have about the new Agent Builder is why they can’t just copy and paste their old agents into the new system. The answer is that the new version uses a completely different engine: hybrid reasoning.
Josh uses the example of the transition to Lightning Web Components from Aura and Visualforce. LWC was created to align with modern web standards that simply didn’t exist when these older frameworks were developed.
The same principle applies to the new Agentforce Builder and the addition of Agent Script. The control that it gives you is a result of the hybrid reasoning engine it’s built around.
Josh’s biggest piece of advice is to take things slowly. The agents you’ve built in classic will still work fine, and just like with Visualforce, they’re not going to be sunset anytime soon. “Salesforce does not like taking away people’s toys,” Josh says, “you don’t need to be in a rush to go and recreate your existing agents in the new Agentforce Builder.”
Instead, try building new agents with Agent Script. It’ll give you a better idea of just how much more control and reliability is possible. And once you’ve gotten your feet wet, you’ll have a better idea of what you’ll get when you update your existing agents. As Josh says, “Don’t panic, learn Agent Script.”
There’s more great stuff from my conversation with Josh about Agent Script and the new Agentforce Builder, so be sure to take a listen. And make sure you’re subscribed to the Salesforce Admins Podcast so you never miss an episode.
Mike Gerholdt:
This week on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, if you’ve ever been wondering why you can’t just copy and paste your old agents into the new version, this episode is for you.
I’m joined by Josh Birk, who recently walked our admin relations team through what’s really changing with Agent Builder and Agentforce. And more importantly, why it matters. We’re going to unpack a little bit of hybrid reasoning, what determinism really means for admins, and how Agent Script gives you even more control without losing all of that magic. So with that, let’s get Josh on the podcast.
So Josh, welcome back to the podcast.
Josh Birk:
Thanks for having me, Mike.
Mike Gerholdt:
Well, we know that a few people are vibing now because of the dulcet tones of Josh Birk. So in all honesty, you were in a team meeting last week and you were kind of updating the team on stuff that’s coming out for new products and beta products. And the biggest thing that you always explain is like, so why is this important?
Josh Birk:
Yeah.
Mike Gerholdt:
And of course, every now and then you end your little skit with, “Thanks for attending my TED Talk.”
Josh Birk:
Yeah.
Mike Gerholdt:
And I remember last week’s meeting, I was like, “Oh man, that’s a podcast. I need to do that.”
Josh Birk:
Yeah.
Mike Gerholdt:
Because the way that you would explained what was new with Agent Builder and Agentforce, I was just like, “Oh, that totally makes sense to me.” So this is where we’re at and this is what I was hoping we would talk about.
Josh Birk:
Yeah. And I’ll have to try because I kind of remember getting into a very weird, almost like conspiracy theory level stream of consciousness.
Mike Gerholdt:
Oh, okay. Well, it didn’t feel that way.
Josh Birk:
Good. I think that’s years of experience of thinking in streams of consciousnesses, whatever the plural of that is. So yeah, so I think to kind of recap a little bit, so there were two things that I think are kind of important to consider about the new Agent Builder. One is what we mean by hybrid reasoning and what we mean by determinism. And then the second thing is, where does Agent Script fit into that? So the question we were kind of tackling was, why didn’t we just go back and revise the old builder? Why can’t we just reiterate on it? Why are we starting completely new?
Mike Gerholdt:
And I think you even said, not to interrupt you, but to interrupt you, why can’t I just move my stuff over? Why do I have to rebuild it?
Josh Birk:
And why can’t I just move my stuff over? Why isn’t it just copy and paste? And Agent Script is part of that.
So the original engine wasn’t hybrid, is I think the easiest way to put it. So this came with a conversation with product management where I was trying to describe the differences between the old builder and the new builder. And they’re like, well, let’s … The old builder wasn’t doing anything wrong, so much is that the new builder’s doing something more.
And what the new builder’s doing that is more is that when we say hybrid, when we think of AI, we think of AI being autonomous, making its own decisions. So we had the Atlas reasoning engine that’s like, “Oh, Mike is looking to find a description on a certain account. I’m going to take these actions. I’m going to put them together into a plan and then I’m going to try to make that work.”
What we didn’t have was the human in the loop portion of that. And where Agent Script really comes into play is it allows users to basically be like, “In this scenario, I want you to behave like this.” So when we say hybrid, we mean, yeah, we’re letting the engine kind of do its own magic. But then we’re also applying almost … I don’t want to say flow because that’s such a loaded term for a Salesforce community.
Mike Gerholdt:
Yeah.
Josh Birk:
But well, let’s go to the name, right? A script, right? A script that a human can actually control personality, control tone, control behavior. When you see this, do this, when you need to call it human. So kind of giving this very human-friendly dialogue that you can then apply to the agent. And so that’s how we provide more determinism.
So the reason you can’t just copy and paste your old agent into the new agent is the old agent doesn’t have that connection to Agent Script. And so it’s literally missing a piece of the puzzle to run the engine kind of thing.
Mike Gerholdt:
Right. No, I think … I mean, hearing you explain it, sometimes, at least as an admin, I was always like, “Oh, so they just came out with another version because they had to stick another layer of something on.”
Josh Birk:
Yeah.
Mike Gerholdt:
Or like a car analogy, they changed the fuzzy dice. But this is, no, no, no, no. We’re really moving from this version, which ran a certain way to an even better version. And that’s the part that I feel like … Because you brought up Flow, I feel like we’ve been through this with Flow.
Josh Birk:
Yeah, totally.
Mike Gerholdt:
We got like a business process … Business management process is what it used to be called. And then that thing went through iterations and then we found a different engine to run it on. And then we had ProcessBuilder for a while and then now we have the new Flow. And it’s like sometimes it’s not just the interface that changed, but it’s actually the guts behind it. Because I mean, I can’t recall … It’s sometime between after the pandemic and today that AI came around. And I feel like that’s the window that works in my brain because I can’t put down a time.
Josh Birk:
Totally.
Mike Gerholdt:
Was it 2022 or is it 2023? I don’t know. Post pandemic, before today, AI happened. But just when you thought, okay, I’ve kind of got this thing figured out, nope, all of this stuff changes.
Josh Birk:
Yeah. And it happens in technology, right? It happened with the Lightning Web Components. We really kind of had to go back and take the new ECMAScript format and take the new ECMAScript standard and really rebuild the way our web components work so that they work in a standard based way. So that they’re more similar to React and more similar to these other frameworks. And there wasn’t really a way to go back to Aura, now it’s called, and just be like, “Hey, Aura, be more standards based.”
Mike Gerholdt:
Right.
Josh Birk:
Because Aura was effectively just … It was pre-standards is the easiest way to put it. So this happens, right?
Now, if people are listening to this and like, “Oh gosh, I have all this work in my old Agent Builder, what am I going to do?” First of all, Salesforce does not like taking away people’s toys.
Mike Gerholdt:
Right. We’ve learned that.
Josh Birk:
We’ve learned that. I’ve said this anecdote in workshops so many times because when we did release Lightning, one of the most common questions I got was, “Are you going to end of life Visualforce?” So I went to the product manager, might have been Skip at the time. And I’m like, “Hey, when would you end of life Visualforce?” And his response was, “When I pull up a dashboard and I see there are zero active users using Visualforce, and then I’d probably wait three months after that.”
Mike Gerholdt:
Just in case.
Josh Birk:
Just in case, right?
Mike Gerholdt:
Yeah.
Josh Birk:
So the classic one is not going anywhere anytime soon. But I think the other important thing is a lot of our messaging when it comes to building out agents is that you’re already an Agent Builder. You’re already somebody who can build AIs because you know Flow, because you know Salesforce. Now you’ve learned topics, now you’ve learned actions and all of that kind of stuff. All of that is still true. It’s all still true. And so you’re still getting to use your existing skills in order to control it. It’s really just adding the skill of knowing how to write out the Agent Script.
Now, one of the cool, really cool things about … Well, there’s two cool things about the new builder that I think will really help people with that. One is the Canvas mode. And so Canvas mode takes what you write in Agent Script and puts it into a visual UI interpretation. And so this is very handy for two things. Number one, it gives you a little bit of kind of a predictive window as to what your script is going to be doing. It also gives you a very visual way of thinking about it. It’s also a really neat way to go look at somebody else’s Agent Script and translate it. So you don’t have to read through all the thing. You can flip over to Canvas mode and be like, “Oh, that’s trying to get these parameters in order to do these actions.”
The other thing going back to vibes and this new AI coding AI is that you’ll have an AI assistant in Builder to help you build the AI. So you’re not alone. Agent Builder itself will also help you create these things out. So my biggest statement back in the Lightning web component today was don’t panic and learn lighting. And now it’s, don’t panic and learn Agent Script and you’re going to build out some really powerful solutions.
Mike Gerholdt:
Well, and I think back to … I mean, I was chatting with Jennifer today too, and just the way that we started using AI. And I remember, I mean, not that long ago doing workshops and saying, “Okay, you need to tell the AI your role, its role. And then what you want it to do and what it can do and what it can’t do.” And for everything, whatever model you were using, I remember writing prompts a certain way. And I feel like for this and with Agentforce, especially for admins, this is the least set it and forget it kind of thing.
Josh Birk:
Yeah.
Mike Gerholdt:
Because you can always go back and make it better.
Josh Birk:
And tweak it. Yeah.
Mike Gerholdt:
And this is-
Josh Birk:
And tweak it in theory. Yeah, exactly. In very small corners too.
Mike Gerholdt:
Small corners that make a huge difference because like with Flow, I mean, half the time I’m just excited that I got it to do what I needed it to do. And then I look at what Jennifer built and I feel like I’m over here rubbing two sticks together.
Josh Birk:
Together.
Mike Gerholdt:
But with Flow, that’s your goal, right? You just want that, okay, boom, it’s done. But with agents, people are interacting with them, they’re asking them questions, I can make this so much better and I can make this better. Here’s the clue when people stop using them.
To your point of when you would replace Visualforce. Well, if you’re looking at your Agentforce dashboard and seeing, “Hey, your users aren’t using it.” well, now might be a time to like, “Well, let’s switch over, let’s round some edges, let’s change some things.” And I would say this is like an every two weeks kind of thing. Which sounds crazy, but the amount at which you’re going to find feedback from your users. And the amount of rounding of edges, I worked myself into an English problem here. It’s going to be like, you’re going to find like a star and then it’s going to look like a ribbon of rounded edges that you have to work on.
Because as you use that new builder, now your users are happier and being more proficient. And I think like even today, when Jennifer and I were talking, we were talking about building Gems in Gemini. And I said, “One thing that I do is I’ll actually have another window open and ask it to refine my instructions in Gemini.”
Josh Birk:
Oh, yeah.
Mike Gerholdt:
Because the way that I write the instructions works for me, but maybe not for it and it can refine it. And I’ve seen it take thousand word prompts and reduce it down to 200 and it’s actually faster. And so having all of that is sometimes there’s a lot to keep up with. But it’s all for the better because now you’re like click click, oh wow. And then you get that … I think it’s always, at the end of the day, the admin is going after that first look on a user’s face and they’re like, “Ooh, this-
Josh Birk:
Nailed it.
Mike Gerholdt:
… just made my life so much easier.”
Josh Birk:
Exactly. Yeah. And I think to kind of append to that, again, not to overuse this analogy of Visualforce. But it’s like don’t be in a rush to go and recreate your existing agents in the new Agent Builder. If you have a new agent you’re building, I would start with the new Agent Builder and go from there.
Two reasons, don’t fix what’s not broken. And also you’ll learn more about Agent Script and things like that. So when you do decide to move your old agent to the new builder, you’ll be more educated on how to do it.
Now, huge forward-looking statement, asterisk, safe harbor, there is a conversation internally about creating a porting tool of some kind. It’s on a roadmap somewhere, no guarantees.
Mike Gerholdt:
Oh.
Josh Birk:
But I do think people should know where we are looking at that kind of thing. So stay tuned because we do want to make this as easy as possible.
Mike Gerholdt:
Yeah. Yeah. But also there’s some joy in rebuilding things and maybe that’s just me. But I’ve always-
Josh Birk:
Seems like part of the tech world. Yeah, exactly.
Mike Gerholdt:
Yeah. I mean, there’s that and there’s also, it reintroduces you to things that at one time you were good at and brings it back. And then I think too, anytime that these new features come out, one part is, okay, well, here’s the tech to change it. But also, has the process changed? Has the stuff that people do internally changed? And that might also be true.
And the other point you brought up, which was really salient, just because you can change it, doesn’t mean you should right now.
Josh Birk:
Yeah.
Mike Gerholdt:
One thing that … And I was a part of this, doing a big org rollout. What are the other changes that your users are experiencing within your organization? And so you adding to that, is that one layer too many? Or when would be a better time? Like we always joke, like you’re not going to roll out a sales opportunity change the last week of the quarter.
Josh Birk:
Right, right.
Mike Gerholdt:
So picking your timing, this means that gives you time to test.
Josh Birk:
Yes. Yeah. And I think this goes into a lot of the conversation we’re having about admins in the AgentiCare. Like what kind of a steward are you being? And how are you using those existing instincts and skills as an admin to not topple over the apple cart, but now you’re doing with AI?
Mike Gerholdt:
Right. Because in my opinion, admins are getting paid for their judgments.
Josh Birk:
Yeah. Yeah. Agreed.
Mike Gerholdt:
Josh, thanks for coming on and helping us understand the new Agent Builder.
Josh Birk:
Thanks for listening to my TED Talk. Yeah.
Mike Gerholdt:
I knew you had to fit that in. And we’ve got just enough time that Daryl can hopefully get his boat from home to the internal … It’s not internal. Inside the podcast joke.
Josh Birk:
Inside the podcast joke.
Mike Gerholdt:
You have to go back to the Daryl Moon episode-
Josh Birk:
Yeah, exactly.
Mike Gerholdt:
… and then it all makes sense. It’s the key to unlocking the mystery of the Dan Brown episodes. I don’t think so.
Josh Birk:
I love it.
Mike Gerholdt:
Anyway.
Josh Birk:
I love it.
Mike Gerholdt:
Have a good day, Josh. Thanks for coming on.
Josh Birk:
Cheers, my man. You too.
Mike Gerholdt:
Huge thanks to Josh for coming on very impromptu and turning what could have been, I think, a little confusing of an update into something that actually makes sense. New engine, new script layer, AI helping you build AI. Awesome. I like it.
So remember, don’t panic, learn Agent Script, and it’s all about having fun. And like any powerful tool in Salesforce, it’s less about flipping a switch and more about steady improvement over time. So if this episode helped you clarify your next steps, share it with another Salesforce admin who’s navigating some AI right now. And until next time, we’ll see you in the cloud.
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