Salesforce said on Monday it has introduced its AI agent specialist training program, Partner FDE (Forward Deployed Engineer), in South Korea for the first time.

A Salesforce Partner FDE is a specialist engineer who analyses a customer’s work environment and supports the full process from AI agent design to build, deployment, operations and optimisation.

Salesforce held its first workshop in Seoul from Oct. 13 to 15 for 44 engineers and consultants from 11 local system integration and consulting partners.

Over the three days, participants were trained on work automation using Salesforce’s AI agent platform Agentforce and collaboration tool Slack, use of unstructured data, data analysis and building key performance indicators. They also reviewed data security and governance, technology readiness and other requirements for operating AI agents.

To join the program, participants must obtain prior certifications such as Agentforce Specialist and Data 360 Consultant and complete about 80 hours of technical study. Those who pass a final assessment after the workshop are granted the Agentforce FDE Practitioner qualification.

Salesforce said more than 1,000 specialists at 140 partner companies worldwide have obtained the certification to date. In South Korea, four partner companies are set to join the FDE network following the workshop, and the company aims to train more than 100 experts by next year.

Salesforce plans to use the program to strengthen partners’ technical capabilities so that South Korean companies’ adoption of AI agents can move beyond pilot builds to real workplace application and performance generation.

Park Se-jin (박세진), head of Salesforce Korea, said companies’ competitiveness will depend not on how quickly they adopt AI but on how well they can embed AI into organisational workflows and convert it into tangible business results. He said he will share specialised capabilities and technical standards accumulated in global markets with local partners.