Nearly every Australian field service business now uses AI, but Salesforce’s Nick Rosen says scheduling pressure, not tech, is driving people out.
Field service businesses across Australia have embraced AI faster than almost anywhere else, but a new Salesforce report suggests the technology alone isn’t enough to keep operations running smoothly, or staff in the job.
The report, State of Field Service: The Road to Revenue in the Agentic Era, surveyed more than 2,300 field service professionals across nine countries, including 255 in Australia. It found 98 per cent of Australian field service organisations have deployed some form of AI, with 90 per cent planning to increase investment within two years, a sharper pace than the global average.
Nick Rosen, SVP at Salesforce, said the technology is outpacing organisations’ ability to support the people using it.
“Australian field service leaders are moving faster on AI than almost anywhere else. However, technology alone doesn’t win the job. Scheduling pressure is driving turnover, signalling that the fastest path to ROI is providing teams with the context and support to use tools effectively.”
For businesses that have connected their systems and prepared their staff, the report found AI is delivering measurable results, 84 per cent of Australian leaders reported measurable ROI, with 36 per cent citing higher mobile worker productivity, 33 per cent improved customer satisfaction and 31 per cent fewer safety incidents. The clearest gains were in scheduling and dispatch, where 53 per cent of organisations reported higher revenue per job.
The report also identified a fundamental tension in the sector. While Australian organisations are deploying AI quickly, 68 per cent face rising turnover, with local workers naming scheduling pressure, rather than training gaps, as the leading reason they leave a role. More than half of Australian organisations, 53 per cent, said mobile workers lack the customer information needed to act on AI recommendations in the first place.
The report points to fragmented systems as the underlying cause. Only 18 per cent of Australian organisations have their field and back-office technology on a single platform, leaving customer data, schedules and asset records split across separate tools, including mobile apps, inventory systems, GPS trackers, connected sensors and, in over half of cases, spreadsheets.
Mirko Gropp, general manager of digital, data and technology at The Living Company, said the value of AI depends on the reliability of the data behind it.
“Technology should make people’s lives better, not more complicated. For us, AI is only valuable when it’s built on connected, reliable data that gives our teams the confidence to respond quickly and make informed decisions.”
Gropp said integrating field service data with the rest of the company’s CRM has let onsite teams and contractors access the right information at the right time.
“Bringing Field Service together with the rest of our CRM means our onsite teams and contractors have the right information at the right time, helping them deliver a more seamless experience for every resident, whether they’re a student, renter or senior living with us.”
Rosen said the businesses seeing genuine returns from AI are the ones pairing it with investment in their frontline teams, not treating deployment as the finish line.
“What stands out in this research is that the organisations seeing real ROI from AI, higher revenue per job, better productivity and fewer safety incidents, are the ones that have connected their systems and equipped their teams, not just deployed a tool.”
Keep up to date with our stories on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
