{"id":226396,"date":"2025-10-20T07:59:20","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T07:59:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/226396\/"},"modified":"2025-10-20T07:59:20","modified_gmt":"2025-10-20T07:59:20","slug":"salesforces-experiment-with-ai-powered-offices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/226396\/","title":{"rendered":"Salesforce\u2019s experiment with AI-powered offices"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is the weekly Work Life newsletter. If you are interested in more careers-related content, sign up<\/a> to receive it in your inbox.<\/p>\n

As Canadian companies push employees back to the office, a new era of work is redefining what the workplace even means. Beyond the open-concept layouts and hybrid schedules, a new layer of artificial intelligence is beginning to influence how office buildings function and how people experience them.<\/p>\n

At Salesforce, one of the world\u2019s largest software companies, that change is unfolding behind the scenes. <\/p>\n

Relina Bulchandani, the company\u2019s executive vice-president of real estate and workplace services, oversees more than 100 offices in 92 cities worldwide, including Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal. Her job blends real estate, technology and people operations \u2013 and, increasingly, AI.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe mantra for us is the right space at the right time for the right folks to be productive,\u201d Ms. Bulchandani says. <\/p>\n

Following the pandemic, Salesforce\u2019s offices, once dominated by individual desks, were redesigned for more diverse uses. Some workers want quiet zones to concentrate, others want social spaces to connect and others need collaborative rooms for meetings. To manage this complexity, Ms. Bulchandani\u2019s team has turned to data and AI.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not just figuring out when people are badging in, but dwell time \u2013 how long they\u2019re staying, how they\u2019re using spaces,\u201d she says. \u201cWe use sensors and analytics to understand what\u2019s actually working.\u201d<\/p>\n

By \u2018working\u2019, she means create the best possible experience and make sure all spaces are being used often. For example, if Ms. Bulchandani notices that one room has many people enter, but they don\u2019t stay for long, she will consider changing furniture setup or other features to drive more utilization. <\/p>\n

Behind the glossy surfaces of Salesforce\u2019s towers is a network of what the company calls \u201cagents\u201d \u2013 intelligent systems that can get work done proactively and autonomously. One example, Workplace Agent, automates maintenance requests and task prioritization by providing maintenance workers with a to-do-list, based on priority and\/or job-type for each shift. <\/p>\n

\u201cWork order management has been ripe for disruption for a long time,\u201d Ms. Bulchandani says. \u201cThis helps people focus on higher-value work.\u201d<\/p>\n

In some offices, AI is even being paired with robotics. Roaming machines are used to monitor buildings and support facilities teams by spotting security breaches, such as a door left open or submitting a work order for overflowing trash.<\/p>\n

AI is also being used to enhance everyday employee experiences. For example, through an internal Employee Agent, which employees can \u2018chat\u2019 with within the communications platform Slack, workers can access common HR documents securely within seconds, without trying to remember what external platform to log in to or reaching out to HR for help.<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Salesforce is using AI to enhance everyday employee experiences such as an internal Employee Agent, which employees can \u2018chat\u2019 with on Slack.Supplied<\/p>\n

Ms. Bulchandani\u2019s team is also using agents to help match employees with appropriate spaces based on their team, purpose and even travel budgets \u2013 shifting away from static seating charts to dynamic, data-informed workplaces.<\/p>\n

They key to successfully implementing this type of AI at scale? Ms. Bulchandani says less is more. \u201cI\u2019m more focused on adoption and efficacy of agents versus having 10 agents,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s early days,\u201d she says, \u201cbut it\u2019s exciting. I think humans, agents and robots are going to disrupt the workplace. That\u2019s the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fast factCorporate catfish<\/p>\n

79 per cent<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how many U.S. workers say they\u2019ve been \u201ccatfished\u201d into a job that didn\u2019t match the recruiter\u2019s description, according to Monster\u2019s 2025 Career Catfishing Report.<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n

Career guidanceBurnout loop<\/p>\n

One worker is in an exhausting cycle: They start a new job off with enthusiasm and receive generally positive feedback about their performance. Then, they start taking on more work until they burn out, make mistakes and neglect other aspects of life. They\u2019re wondering if this is common and how to overcome it. <\/p>\n

Experts say this experience is fairly common among high-achieving, purpose-driven professionals. Breaking the cycle will require setting realistic priorities, setting boundaries to ensure sufficient recovery time and monitoring personal energy as closely as they monitor their work deliverables. <\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n

QuotedVanishing jobs<\/p>\n

\u201cThese kids, they\u2019re doing everything. They\u2019re going above and beyond what anybody\u2019s ever done before. It\u2019s a brutal situation for everyone,\u201d says an anonymous computer science PhD candidate in Toronto, who is worried for the mental health of increasingly \u201chigh strung\u201d undergraduate students in the program who are panicking in the current job market.<\/p>\n

This Toronto Star article looks at how entry-level positions in computer science are drying up because of AI, an uncertain economy and a surplus of new grads. <\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n

On our radarAI uh-ohs<\/p>\n

From AI-related layoffs that don\u2019t consider the Human Rights Code to workers in human resources consulting ChatGPT instead of lawyers in the termination process, AI is creating a \u201clegal minefield\u201d for employers.<\/p>\n

Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is the weekly Work Life newsletter. If you are interested in more careers-related content, sign up to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":226397,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,276,277,49,48,2924,22463,22464,22460,22459,1663,22465,124,1412,2922,61,22462,18940,22461],"class_list":["post-226396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-career-advice","tag-career-leadership","tag-careers-globe-and-mail","tag-careers-newsletter","tag-careersnewsletter","tag-future-of-work","tag-globe-and-mail-newsletter","tag-jobs","tag-newsletter","tag-noastack","tag-technology","tag-thought-leadership","tag-workplace-culture","tag-your-life-at-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}