How Agentforce is Transforming Businesses in ASEAN with Sujith Abraham
Release Date: 02/02/2025
Analyse Asia
"They will judge Masa to have been an extraordinarily consequential investor and historic figure in world investing and tech investing because he has made not just spectacular bets—but he's made so many people rich. I mean, with other people's money. All these founders, he's given them money, he's been an enormous disruptor, and he's built global businesses. He's built a huge business in Japan on the mobile operator. So for all these reasons, I know he sometimes feels dissatisfied with his legacy, and he's now trying to build his greatest legacy in the march to artificial general...
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"We're all vulnerable. And I hadn't thought about that previously. I thought, oh, it's only a small group of people who might fall for this. What I've learned is actually [that] these scammers are so sophisticated. They have so much money. Based on my reporting, this industry, you know, is maybe more lucrative than the illicit drug trade, and these criminal syndicates might be making over 500 billion US dollars a year. So that means they have access to the latest technology, whether it's voice cloning or face changing software. They can buy the latest in AI tools. they can stay several...
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"So that was back in 2021. And then after Revolution Precrafted, there was Zilingo in 2022, and then Tanihub and Investree - which were P2P lenders in 2023(24) - and then eFishery. So actually every single year we've been getting pretty big blow ups. But as I was looking at the cases for each of them, one thing I've noticed is the sophistication of the fraud is actually becoming more advanced." - Kristie Neo Fresh out of the studio, Kristie Neo, an independent journalist covering tech and venture capital, joins us to dissect the rise of startup fraud in Southeast Asia and why it’s becoming...
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"What's the point if it's a fast platform, but I still have to go somewhere else? And the last thing is speed. Right now, especially in our region, it's a land grab. When we think about some of the fastest-growing economies in the world—Indonesia, for example, Vietnam, the Philippines—you have hundreds of millions of people here. What we see in every customer I speak to is interest in how they use our platform to move faster, to deploy AI. They don't want to have to build a foundation level of AI, integrating all those elements themselves. They want to deploy it faster. When you think...
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" Now, the beauty about the real estate industry, if you look outside and you look at the commercial buildings, you have a lot of data generated on a daily basis. The challenge is, what do you do with this data? How do you mine this data in a smart way to give you better investment decisions going forward [or] better decisions on how you run the building? Where are the opportunities to reduce your expenses? On the climate side, how do you reduce your operational carbon? How do you make those buildings better? I think that here, Gen AI, can help big time, because any solution that will mine...
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"What does great look like? For us, it's being able to achieve this vision of a society of agents. So, if you can show clearly the economic value of a society when agents can influence other agents, agents can influence humans, and humans can influence agents, that would be something that I'll be very proud to say that we've accomplished. Because that's the beauty of really combining breakthroughs on the AI, on the autonomous agent front, and the value add of crypto. This is one of those very rare moments that crypto has that true potential value add, right? As a productivity lever and an...
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"People always ask us this question, what can I learn from that country? People ask us about this from the report especially when we're talking to policymakers, or what should I learn from Malaysia? What should I learn? The thing to learn is to not learn to replicate exactly. But the thing to learn is sort of what are the principles behind what works for them. What are your comparative advantages, Every country needs to be asking that for themselves. So for Vietnam, comparative advantages are things like proximity to China, and an ability at a geopolitical level to navigate between...
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“ Yeah. We plan to replace the fleet by 2040. We can't scrap all of them now because each bus lasts 18 years. So we have the depreciation for 18 years. They're all from the U.K. All the buses are from the U.K. All the double-deckers. That's the only country that makes double-decker buses, and it's the same as Singapore. All the double-deckers are from the U.K. Because of COVID, when we replace all these diesel buses with electricity, you need a lot more power and electricity to accommodate this. So the government has to work with us. But today, we can't really see that if we import all...
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"But what I didn't realize is that the main reason they wanted us in China was so that they could study our business model and figure out how to copy it over time. And that was something I wasn't expecting, but I should have. If I were less naive, And if I were better prepared, I would have realized that was the intention. So the original title, the working title I had for my book, which I had to change because the publisher didn't like it, my original title was 'One Bed, Two Dreams' (同床异梦). Because that's a phrase that most Chinese are familiar with." - Ken Wilcox Fresh out of the...
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"So, my definition of being fearless is not about no fear, but it's having that courage to face your fear, to conquer whatever adversities that are thrown your way. it is part of the entrepreneur journey. We are always faced with fear of failure. Self Doubt is how to pick up our courage and face them and use these challenges to become your catalyst for innovation, the catalyst for growth, the catalyst for your success." - Yvon Bock Fresh out of the studio, Yvon Bock, Founder and CEO of Hegen, shares her inspiring journey from stay-at-home mom to world-class entrepreneur in her new book,...
info_outline"What's the point if it's a fast platform, but I still have to go somewhere else? And the last thing is speed. Right now, especially in our region, it's a land grab. When we think about some of the fastest-growing economies in the world—Indonesia, for example, Vietnam, the Philippines—you have hundreds of millions of people here. What we see in every customer I speak to is interest in how they use our platform to move faster, to deploy AI. They don't want to have to build a foundation level of AI, integrating all those elements themselves. They want to deploy it faster. When you think about our history, we have 250 petabytes of data being accessed by 150,000 customers every single day. When you take that set, we had to get this right. We had to because we have thousands of engineers focused on building these platforms so our customers don't have to—so they can deploy innovation and create truly unique and differentiated customer journeys." - Sujith Abraham
Fresh out of the studio, Sujith Abraham, Senior Vice President and General Manager, ASEAN at Salesforce, joins us to explore how Agentforce 2.0 is transforming enterprise AI. He shares his journey from automotive engineering to tech leadership, reflecting on the rise of AI agents that move beyond chatbots to take real-world actions. Sujith explains how Agentforce 2.0 integrates across Salesforce products like Slack and Tableau, helping businesses automate sales, customer service, and marketing. He highlights how banks, airlines, and telcos in Southeast Asia are leveraging AI for growth, alongside Salesforce’s shift to a pay-as-you-go model for easier adoption. Addressing AI trust and governance, he underscores data privacy and enterprise-grade AI security. Closing the conversation, Sujith shares his vision for AI-driven customer engagement and what great looks like for Salesforce & Agentforce 2.0 in ASEAN.
Profile: Sujith Abraham, Senior Vice President and General Manager, ASEAN for Salesforce, LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sujithabraham/
Audio Episode Highlights:
[00:46] Quote of the day by Sujith Abraham
[01:44] Introduction: Sujith Abraham, Senior Vice President and General Manager, ASEAN for Salesforce
[02:22] Sujith’s Career Journey
[03:51] Career Lessons from Sujith
[05:26] What is Salesforce & Its Mission?
[08:27] Definition of Generative AI & AI Agents in the context of enterprises
[11:22] Introduction to Agentforce 2.0
[15:37] AI Across Salesforce Products
[20:22] Enterprise AI Adoption & Challenges
[22:51] The Business Model of Agentforce
[24:07] Industry Use Cases in Southeast Asia
[25:47] AI Governance & Trust at Salesforce
[27:54] Choosing the Right Large Language Model (LLM)
[28:55] Advice for Business Leaders on AI Adoption
[30:60] The One Thing Sujith Knows About Salesforce & Agentforce in ASEAN That Very Few Do
[32:48] The One Question Sujith Wants More People to Ask: Why Salesforce?
[34:45] What Does Great Look Like for Salesforce?
[37:05] Closing
Podcast Information: Bernard Leong hosts and produces the show. The proper credits for the intro and end music are "Energetic Sports Drive." G. Thomas Craig mixed and edited the episode in both video and audio format. Here are the links to watch or listen to our podcast.
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