2 SALESFORSALESFORCE FUTURESCE FUTURES ANTICIPATING PERSONAL AGENTS: DESIRABILITY Our personal agents will have endless patience for tedious, detailed tasks (think taxes, paperwork, applications, and other) of the sort that sap our attention and, occasionally, our desire to endure the human condition. Agents have the potential to remove this burden. PERSONALIZATION Greater contextual intelligence and more persistent memory suggest agents will provide personalization that’s far greater than what we “I use a similar see today. Itai Asseo and Phil Mui, who work de昀椀nition of ‘agent’ on AI R&D for Salesforce, encourage us to think to economists; that about personalization in three categories: is, a narrow AI that “know me”, “inform me”, and “empower me”. acts on behalf of its In the “know me” category, agents keep your principal (or user) goals in mind, analyze your performance, and out of sight, while adjust to your unique style. Because every that principal’s interaction with personal AI will be remembered— attention is on or stored as a state—and factored into future other things.” use cases, a flywheel effect takes hold: the more you use your agent, the better it gets at anticipating your needs in an intuitive way. CHRIS NOESSEL In the “inform me” category, we consider the AUTHOR possibility that agents could use their contextual intelligence to help guide and prioritize our attention and separate signal from noise. This has clear applications in the personal productivity space, but the implications on the consumer side are no less significant. Imagine an agent who helps you switch on “Zen Mode” and other filters so you can better tune your environment, and even remove things from your plate by acting on your behalf. Finally, the “empower me” function speaks to personal AI’s ability to serve as a coach/mentor, or even a manager. ISSUE 1: PERSONAL AI | 16