Polyant vs Salesforce Agentforce.
Polyant and Salesforce Agentforce are both solutions for bringing AI agents into enterprise operations. Agentforce is the natural choice for those who already rely on Salesforce as their primary operational platform. Polyant stands out for those who want agent fleets outside the Salesforce perimeter, with contractual data residency in an EU region, freedom of choice on models and channels, and a single-interlocutor bundle that includes software, professional services, and managed services.
Two adoption strategies, two different perimeters.
Polyant and Salesforce Agentforce are both mature products for building AI agents in the enterprise, with comparable baseline capabilities on the conversational side: persistent memory, integration with management systems, and execution of operational actions. Both are used in production at mid-to-large European companies.
Polyant stands out on three axes relevant to the EU company that does not want to enter or does not want to stay inside the Salesforce perimeter. The first axis is data sovereignty: the instance runs on the infrastructure the customer chooses in an EU region, inside the cloud account or on the European Exelab infrastructure, with data residency declared in the contract. The second axis is stack freedom: full LLM provider choice, observability with LangSmith or the customer's stack, integrable management systems even when they are not Salesforce. The third axis is the commercial bundle: product + professional services + managed services in a single Exelab contract, no consumption pricing for agent actions.
Agentforce Salesforce Inc. · USA Agentforce is the AI agent suite integrated into the Salesforce platform, featuring the Atlas Reasoning Engine, an AppExchange library of ready-made actions, a declared dependency on Salesforce Data Cloud for the data layer, and a consumption-based commercial model built on Flex Credits. The customer works within the Salesforce ecosystem, builds agents with Salesforce tools, distributes them across Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, and Marketing Cloud, and keeps them in production on Salesforce infrastructure.
Eight purchase dimensions compared.
| Polyant | Salesforce Agentforce | |
|---|---|---|
| Data sovereignty and residency | Deploy in the customer's cloud account, Exelab infrastructure in EU, or on-premise. Data residency declared in the contract | Salesforce cloud with EU regions available (Hyperforce); the agents' operational data stays inside the Salesforce perimeter |
| EU enterprise vendor | Exelab, EU-headquartered. ISO 27001. HubSpot Elite Solutions Partner, Twilio Gold Partner, vendor qualification on regulated-industry companies | Salesforce Inc., United States. Global commercial presence, EU contracts available |
| Purchase model | Product + Exelab professional services + three managed service profiles in a single contract. Contractual SLA, pricing defined in qualification | Salesforce subscription (Sales/Service Cloud) + Agentforce with consumption pricing per action and/or conversation; Data Cloud required separately |
| Multi-instance multi-tenant | Native architecture: isolated instances with AES-256-GCM secrets per instance, centralised admin panel | Multi-tenant on Salesforce infrastructure with org-level isolation |
| Built-in security and control | Security controls compiled in the runtime, decision registry inspectable via standard SQL, article-by-article AI Act and GDPR mapping | Einstein Trust Layer as proprietary content/governance on the Salesforce perimeter; audit inside the suite |
| Native customer-facing channels | Telegram, Slack, WhatsApp, OpenAI-compatible API. Markdown skills configurable by the business team | Salesforce Service Cloud, Experience Cloud, Slack (Salesforce), distribution via Salesforce apps |
| AI providers and stack freedom | OpenAI, Anthropic, AWS Bedrock with access to the leading models (Amazon Nova, Anthropic, Llama, Qwen, DeepSeek, Mistral) under the customer's cloud account; observability with LangSmith or the customer's stack | Proprietary Atlas Reasoning Engine, Einstein models, provider choices managed inside the Salesforce platform |
| Technical stack and adoption path | TypeScript, NestJS, Next.js, PostgreSQL. Admin panel, channels, built-in controls, memory, and dashboard already ready | Configuration via visual Agent Builder + Apex/Flow for custom logic; Salesforce skills in the team or via system integrator |
Six situations where Polyant is the most direct choice.
Polyant integrates with any CRM (HubSpot, Microsoft Dynamics, proprietary systems, vertical industry CRMs) without requiring Salesforce to be present. For those who have not already invested in the Salesforce suite, this avoids paying for an ecosystem they will not fully use.
The instance runs wherever the customer chooses: the customer's cloud account in an EU region, Exelab infrastructure in the EU, or on-premise. LLM models accessed via Bedrock stay within the customer's cloud account. For those with formal sovereignty constraints, or who do not want to tie their agents' operational data to a single US vendor, this is a fundamental difference.
The Exelab bundle is billed for professional services and the chosen managed profile, with pricing defined during qualification and a contractual SLA. There are no per-action consumption costs and no separately billed Data Cloud. For CFOs planning the IT budget over 2–3 years, cost predictability is a central concern.
EU-headquartered vendor with legal seat in Rome, ISO 27001 certified, with active vendor qualification on banking and insurance procurement, and recognised as a HubSpot Elite Solutions Partner and Twilio Gold Partner. For formal EU requirements (DORA, NIS2, sovereign cloud), the vendor's location is an explicit assessment dimension.
Telegram, Slack, WhatsApp Business via WAHA, OpenAI-compatible API. All native in the runtime core. For the customer service of a European bank, insurer, or utility that talks to the end customer on WhatsApp, channel coverage is structural and does not require third-party integrations.
The software is open source under AGPLv3. No proprietary black box, no closed reasoning engine. The legal team reads the licence, the CIO reads the code, the head of compliance queries the audit registry with their standard SQL client.
Agentforce Salesforce Inc. · USA Agentforce remains the most direct choice in two scenarios.
For companies already deeply invested in the Salesforce platform, Agentforce offers native integration with Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, and Marketing Cloud, an AppExchange library of ready-made actions, and the Atlas Reasoning Engine as an integrated AI capability. It is the most direct choice when the enterprise strategy aims to extend the Salesforce investment with AI agents inside the suite.
Six substantial differences in the purchase model.
What the vendor delivers to the customer.
Polyant delivers the product, Exelab professional services to build the agents for the customer, and three managed service profiles in a single contract. Salesforce delivers the suite (Sales/Service Cloud) with Agentforce as a component; the actual construction of the agents is handled by the customer's in-house team or by separate Salesforce-certified system integrators.
Who the typical buyer is.
Polyant is designed to address the needs of a broad mix of corporate functions, from C-level to CTO to head of compliance, with alignment across stakeholders. Agentforce primarily speaks to companies that have already chosen Salesforce as their core operational platform and want to extend that investment with AI agents integrated into the suite.
Where the software runs in the managed model.
Polyant runs in the customer's cloud account in an EU region, on the Exelab infrastructure in EU, or on-premise. Agentforce runs on Salesforce infrastructure (Hyperforce) with EU regions available; the agents' operational data stays inside the Salesforce perimeter.
How costs are measured.
Polyant has pricing defined in qualification on the real case, with software cost, professional services, and managed services under contract. Agentforce combines the Salesforce subscription (per Sales/Service Cloud user), the consumption Agentforce cost (per action and/or conversation), and Data Cloud billed separately: the CFO assesses three items moving together.
How the product is managed after go-live.
Polyant offers continuous infrastructure management, software maintenance, and operational support under one of the three Exelab managed profiles. Agent management stays with the customer's team via admin panel or code, or delegated to Exelab with dedicated professional services. With Agentforce, the infrastructure is managed by Salesforce; operational management of the agents stays with the customer's team with Salesforce skills or with the system integrator.
What goes into the legal and procurement assessment.
Polyant is delivered by Exelab, EU-headquartered with legal seat in Rome, with service management in an EU region. Salesforce is delivered by Salesforce Inc., headquartered in the United States; EU contracts are available through Hyperforce. For EU enterprise procurement, vendor location, service delivery region, and data perimeter are all formal assessment dimensions.
Five recurring questions on the comparison.
Yes. Polyant can integrate Salesforce as one of the customer's management systems, just as it can integrate HubSpot, Microsoft Dynamics, and proprietary CRMs. The key difference from Agentforce is that Polyant agents operate outside the Salesforce perimeter: the instance runs on the customer's or Exelab's infrastructure, and operational data and audit logs remain within the chosen jurisdiction. When the customer uses Salesforce, the integration is scoped during discovery based on the specifics of the case.
The typical timeline for the first agent in production is 4–8 weeks, covering discovery, configuration, integration with the customer's systems, and hand-off to the operations team. For a coordinated squad of multiple agents, the estimate rises to 8–12 weeks. The main factor is the number of integrations with the customer's systems and the complexity of the operational rules. The actual duration is defined during discovery on the specific case.
They are different commercial models. Agentforce bills per action and conversation consumed, with Data Cloud required separately; costs scale with usage. Polyant pricing is defined during qualification for professional services and the managed profile, and is contractually fixed for the agreed scope. A total-cost-of-ownership comparison is done case by case during discovery, depending on the projected volume of agents and actions.
For the customer's legal team, the two key dimensions are the software licence and the data processing location. Polyant is AGPLv3, with the code inspectable before signature; data processing takes place in the jurisdiction the customer selects, as declared in the Exelab contract. Salesforce is proprietary, with standard SaaS contracts and data processing on Salesforce infrastructure (Hyperforce EU regions available). The two assessments address different legal and procurement requirements.
Yes. Polyant integrates Salesforce as one of the customer's systems, with agents remaining under Polyant governance and on the customer's chosen infrastructure. A typical scenario is multi-channel customer service: the agent converses with customers on WhatsApp while reading and writing contact history in Salesforce, with audit logs kept within the customer's perimeter. Coexistence options with Salesforce are defined and agreed upon during discovery.
Two steps forward.
Have a conversation with the Exelab team to explore the customer's specific use case and how it fits with the current or future Salesforce perimeter, or take a deeper dive into the product to see whether Polyant's features meet the customer's needs.