19/10/2026
The best agent is the one people use so naturally that they only notice it when it breaks.
That was our biggest takeaway from our time in Johannesburg two weeks ago, where five of our colleagues, Mehreen Jhummun , Eishna Pulton, Aaliyah Mohungoo , Hougesh Conhye and Naailah Nuthoo , joined FDE Ready: Making Agents Matter, the hands-on workshop Salesforce ran for implementation partners in the Agentforce FDE Ready Program, from 5 to 7 October.
The Forward Deployed Engineer programme has landed in South Africa for the first time, and it’s a milestone for the South African partner ecosystem.
Over three days we worked through a realistic customer platform balancing the needs of customers, partners and internal support teams, and asked where agents can genuinely reduce friction for each of them.
One message stayed with us: an AI agent only matters if it makes work faster, cheaper and more accurate for the people who use it every day, whether that’s your customers, your teams or your partners. Adoption and measurable results come first. Technology comes second.
The question worth asking of any AI initiative is simple: what changes for the people using it, and how will we measure it?
Read more about the South Africa launch: https://techfinancials.co.za/2026/10/06/salesforce-brings-its-elite-forward-deployed-engineer-progr…
Thank you to Ushal Moonsamy and the Salesforce Alliance and Channels team for leading this, and to Fabrice Pierre, Susana Morillas Fresno and Adeline Cruywagen for the deeply practical sessions.
Now we take this back to our clients: AI that delivers visible, measurable value from day one.
