4 Types of Consumers—and What They Expect From AI Agents

When it comes to AI agents, most of the conversation has centered around enterprise and B2B use cases. But consumer interest is growing—and it’s too big to ignore. New research from Salesforce reveals that everyday users are just as eager to engage with AI agents, not just for productivity, but also for personalized support in their daily lives. The study identifies four key consumer personas that businesses should consider when designing AI agents: the Smarty Pants, the Minimalist, the Life-Hacker, and the Tastemaker.

“The narrative around AI, including agentic AI, has been somewhat asymmetric in nature,” Vala Afshar, Salesforce’s chief digital evangelist, tells me. “[There’s] a lot of discussions around business efficiency and optimization, and how business leaders are looking to implement predictive, generative, agentic, or even physical AI—the various waves of innovation we’ve experienced over the last several years—and not enough focus on our customers, our consumers, business-to-business buyers, how folks are using this technology…AI agents are transformative for consumers as they are for businesses.”

In a survey of 2,552 U.S. consumers, Salesforce is offering compelling insights that organizations can use to inform their product development and marketing personas when creating AI agents.

What Motivates You to Use an Agent?

“Consumers remind us that…the experience that a company provides is as important as its products or services,” Afshar declares. And with AI agents delivering more personalized, proactive, and conversational experiences, those expectations are only growing. “I suspect as we continue to do these surveys, we’re going to find out that the experience could be a make or break for a brand or a company, and to understand how people want to use this technology.”

One of the standout findings from the report is that 65 percent of respondents expressed interest in tools that help them make better decisions and simplify their lives. But although the desire for the AI is there, are they equally as comfortable with the technology?

Here’s what we know about the four personas:

The Smarty Pants

The persona most respondents identified with (43 percent), so-called “smarty pants” love being well-informed and prefer an AI agent that provides a detailed, well-presented analysis of options to help them make confident and strategic decisions.

The Minimalist

Less than a quarter of respondents fall into this category (22 percent). It’s also the group that is mainly made up of consumers who identify as Generation X or Baby Boomers (64%). They are not as familiar with AI, but want agents to help them with decision-making and handle tasks—anything to create a low-stress approach to life.

The Life-Hacker

This persona is someone who is comfortable with AI tools and wants an agent to improve their efficiency, help with multitasking, and serve as a personal assistant. Sixteen percent of survey users fall into this category. They want to make the smartest, most efficient decisions possible.

The Tastemaker

This final persona is primarily composed of Gen Z and millennial consumers. They want bots to provide them with personalized and curated recommendations for their lives, from picking out shows to watch to places to eat, products to buy, and more. Fifteen percent of respondents said they’re a tastemaker.

As an aside, Afshar points out that the categories don’t add up to 100 percent. According to him, “we found about four percent of the respondents sit into multiple categories with equal weight, and instead of deciding for them, we just excluded them.”

You can find out which persona you are by taking this quiz.

Interpreting the Insights

Consumers curious about which of the four personas they align with can take a quick quiz on Salesforce’s website—similar to the interactive experience the company offered last year alongside its Slack AI personas survey. If anything, the results will provide them with an assessment of how comfortable they are with AI agents.

For businesses, the survey results can be a valuable educational resource. The data will hopefully help inform the agent development process so that companies can fine-tune the AI experience. “Agents…may be new, but given their autonomous capabilities—more than just assistive—they are transformative for customers as they are for businesses,” Afshar says. “That said, consumers are still early in their journey, so there is interest in agents, but the comfort level varies.”

He highlights that there is an age difference in terms of consumer comfort level, something echoed in a recent Quinnipiac University poll. Regardless, the key point is that people are still using AI.

“Consumers are ready for AI agents to simplify their lives and deliver benefits with this technology so that businesses can strengthen customer service, satisfaction, and loyalty,” Afshar remarks. “If you’re a customer-facing function, you should know consumers are going to start using these technologies, and it’s going to be greater and greater adoption as we go, as the technology becomes more accurate, more trustworthy, and more powerful. My advice to business leaders…businesses that embrace AI agents will meet these rising customer expectations and, hopefully in time, deliver unparalleled value.”

The Consumer AI Catalyst

He describes artificial intelligence as having a non-linear impact, meaning it’s technology that fundamentally changes how people use time and resources, creating possibilities far beyond the original function. Waymo, a favorite example of Salesforce’s, demonstrates the impact of tech as it transitions from assistive to fully autonomous—the vehicle moves from simply driving us from point A to point B to enabling us to engage in other activities while in transit (e.g., work, rest, entertain ourselves, etc.). Afshar sees the same thing happening with agents once consumers “start making appointments, canceling schedules…find[ing] a job, improv[ing] their health, wealth, or wisdom.”

Ultimately, successful businesses in this AI-first world will have their finger on the pulse of the consumer. Reminiscing about past technological waves, Afshar states that it was consumer interest that “ultimately woke businesses in terms of how they needed to restructure their tech stack, culture, processes, and what technologies they lean into.” He argues that consumers will be a driving force in how organizations develop their roadmaps, strategic partners, and their so-called “self-driving business.”

For Salesforce, this latest research is a way to guide its Agentforce users in building more effective AI agents, especially as the company champions the rise of the digital workforce. It’s a helpful reminder that a “Field of Dreams” approach won’t work (“If you build it, they will come”). As organizations design their AI agents, they need to consider more than just features and marketing personas. They have to take into account how much users trust AI in the first place and why they’d want to use it.

“Technology is giving greater voices and choices to folks who are spending their hard-earned dollars with the vendor to do business with,” Afshar states.

To win over customers, whether B2B or B2C, Afshar declares that the “currencies that matter most in a hyper-connected, knowledge-sharing economy” are speed, trust, personalization, and scale.

Featured Image: Salesforce has identified four types of people based on what they want out of AI agents. Image credit: Ken Yeung/Adobe Firefly