Salesforce builds its own AI model for customer service and sales

Salesforce, which makes one of the world's most widely used systems for keeping track of customers and sales (a so-called CRM system), presented its new AI model Koa on September 15, 2026 at the Dreamforce conference in San Francisco. Going forward, the model will power the company's AI helpers, called Agentforce agents, meaning computer programs that can carry out tasks on their own, such as answering customers or finding information.

Koa is built together with the chip company Nvidia. Salesforce took an Nvidia model and further trained it with data drawn from nearly 30 years of experience with customer systems in 14 different industries, including manufacturing, finance, health and travel. According to Salesforce, Koa is as good as or better than other well-known AI models for this type of task, and it makes three times fewer errors on the company's own test.

Better at remembering conversations

Salesforce also cites concrete figures: Koa is 11 percent better at choosing the right action, it remembers a customer's earlier inquiries 2.1 times better, and it is 15 percent better at remembering the context in long conversations.

An important selling point is data security. Salesforce says Koa runs entirely within the company's own system, so customer data isn't sent out to others. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said on stage: "Knowledge is built directly into the model itself... it's a different kind of intelligence, and it runs entirely within your own secure boundaries." Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang added that Nvidia's open models give Salesforce a foundation for turning decades of enterprise knowledge into a specialized AI.

Selected customers test first

Right now, only a select group of customers can try Koa, including the companies 1-800Accountant, Baxter Credit Union, Engine, Formula 1, UChicago Medicine and Xero. Salesforce also uses the model internally, including in a help tool that finds information for employees. The model is expected to become available to everyone in winter 2026, first in the US and later in an open test period. It has not yet been announced whether or when Koa will come to Denmark or the rest of the EU, and no prices have been set for the model yet.

Companies that want to try Koa now must apply for access through Salesforce's test program. When the model becomes widely available, companies will be able to choose it as the AI model that powers their customer system.

More news at Dreamforce

Besides Koa, Salesforce also showed several other new things at the conference: a tool called AIforce, where you can ask questions and create overviews in plain language, a version with Anthropic's AI model Claude built in, and a solution that makes it easier for other computer systems to pull data from Salesforce automatically.

What it means for you

If you already use Salesforce for customer service or sales, Koa could eventually mean fewer errors and better answers from your AI helpers. If you're among the selected test customers, you can apply for access now; otherwise you'll have to wait until winter 2026, when the model becomes widely available in the US. Watch whether Salesforce later announces when and at what price Koa will come to Denmark and the EU.