More than half of Canadians say they don’t care how they interact with companies—as long as their issues are resolved quickly. Yet many still struggle to get what they need. A recent Salesforce survey found more than one in three Canadians are open to using AI agents to avoid hold times and frustrating transfers. That’s the kind of challenge Young Drivers of Canada aimed to solve with Agentforce—Salesforce’s new AI platform that automates personalized service at scale.

Young Drivers of Canada, the Gold Standard in Canadian driver education with more than 1.4 million drivers trained over 50 years, recently named Andrew Marek its first chief AI officer to help reimagine how it handles scale, personalization, and support.

In conversation with Canadian Business, Marek explains the strategy behind adopting agentic AI—and how Agentforce is shaping the company’s next chapter.

What was the “lightbulb moment” that led to agentic AI as a solution to Young Drivers’ business challenges?

When I joined the company, demand for our courses had surged to the point where we were getting over 600 calls a day—far more than our customer service, sales, and scheduling teams could handle. Our service levels slipped, and we didn’t have the resources to keep up. That’s when I attended Salesforce’s annual event, Dreamforce, and saw the opportunity to apply agentic AI to optimize our operations.

What makes it more complex is the nature of our customer base: it’s not just the student, but often a parent who’s calling. Everyone is time-constrained, and traditional service hours weren’t cutting it. We needed something that could respond 24/7, intelligently route queries and match students with the right course, instructor, and location without requiring human intervention. 

What were you looking for in an agentic AI platform or partner, and how did you determine that Agentforce was the right fit?

We started with in-house proof-of-concept builds through our internal AI and IT teams. That worked for experimentation, but not for scale. We needed a partner with robust backend capability, jurisdictional compliance, and enterprise-grade reliability.

Salesforce had the infrastructure and tools we needed to scale—including integration with our data sources and compatibility with our business management systems. It was the only option that could meet our complexity, support growth, and help us deliver a seamless customer experience.

What was the biggest challenge to adopting agentic AI? 

Our biggest hurdle was technical. We had to modernize from a monolith structure to a modular, agile one. On top of that, our data wasn’t 100 per cent clean.

Salesforce and MuleSoft helped us virtualize our data layer, enabling access without merging all the silos. That change was fundamental. It allowed us to scale scheduling and begin integrating AI across customer service, sales, and now marketing.

Given your recent move to Agentforce, what tangible benefits are top of mind for you and your team?

Students—especially younger ones—don’t want to talk on the phone. They prefer interacting with digital systems. Now they will be able to use our AI-powered scheduling tool independently, which will also free up the parents, who used to have to do it for them. We’ve already seen an 80 per cent drop in IT tickets for common questions like lost passwords or login issues. That lets our IT team focus on more meaningful work. And because customers know upfront that they’re interacting with an AI agent, there’s transparency—but no pushback. In fact, it’s what many of them prefer.

You were recently appointed as chief AI officer, which is still a rare role at Canadian SMBs. What’s the significance of that role now? 

AI is here to stay. If we don’t embrace it, our competition will. And agentic AI is just the beginning. It’s a game changer – agentic AI involves self-directed systems that can complete tasks and make decisions independently.

We just launched an AI-enhanced driver’s coach app on iOS that offers 24/7 support, helping students and parents practice outside of in-vehicle sessions. We’re also exploring multilingual AI agents to support newcomers to Canada. This isn’t just about automation—it’s about accessibility, personalization, and global reach.

What aspect of your business do you see the most potential for AI? 

It’s all about surfacing and activating data. We leveled up our data to be able to deliver personalized experiences based on a customer’s learning style, anxiety towards driving or seasonal driving preferences, and more. Agentforce will help us tap into the digital labour workforce to address challenges associated with scaling operations and maintaining high service standards.

With the right systems, we will be able to detect if a student is struggling with a certain skill or has a specific learning style, and then tailor the training accordingly. That means better outcomes and more lives saved—which is the heart of our mission.

Looking ahead, where do you see agentic AI shaking things up next? 

We’re exploring chained agent sessions—one agent handling intake, another handling specific needs, and so on. We’re also looking at multilingual and multimodal functionality to improve accessibility. 

And we intend to rely on Salesforce’s jurisdictional compliance and governance to expand responsibly.  Agentic AI has improved all aspects of work: productivity, efficiency, strategic decision-making, and overall satisfaction.

The future is wide open, and agentic AI is how we’ll get there.

To learn more about how Young Drivers leverages AI, click here