Beyond the hype: How Microsoft, Salesforce, Deloitte, and Gong are designing an interoperable AI future

The groundswell behind AI agents has sparked levels of excitement that are matched only by the historic investments in this technology. But the hype comes with questions too, chief among them: How do we ensure that we extract value from this AI?

Most complex business processes span multiple systems and require data across multiple platforms. However, until recently, AI agents were limited to the data and workflows in their respective platforms, which limited their efficacy and resulted in failed pilots. That left leadership wondering where their ROI was, and how they could mitigate silos and future-proof their investments.

Industry leaders from some of the world’s leading tech companies — Microsoft, Salesforce, and Deloitte — recently gathered at Gong’s Celebrate event to discuss how to solve this challenge. Their answer was interoperability and the use of Model Context Protocol (MCP), the standard that enables AI agents to work together, which Gong now supports.

Our speakers were unanimous: The market has shifted, rapidly moving past generative AI hype toward autonomous agents that automate mundane tasks across multiple platforms and free up GTM teams for high-value, strategic activities.

Transforming your revenue organization with AI requires re-engineering your revenue motions by connecting agents and ensuring they run on a unified set of high-quality data. “Agent sprawl is what happens if you don’t have an integrated AI agent strategy and a good data strategy,” says Paul Vinogradov, Principal, Customer Advisory and Solutioning Practice Leader at Deloitte. Karan Nigam, Senior Director AI Agent Marketing, Microsoft, agreed wholeheartedly. “Don't underestimate the value of getting your data right. AI agents are only as effective as the data they’re built on, so if you have bad data infrastructure, you’ll have bad agents,” he added.

Great data is only valuable when it can work across solutions. Otherwise, agents can’t access the full context of a customer relationship, and that leads to missed opportunities for sales teams.

To achieve a unified, AI-powered GTM vision, AI agents can be set up to communicate via the emerging MCP standard. We invited each leader to share their MCP strategy and how they’re developing that capability today.

With Salesforce’s Agentic AI Marketplace, AgentExchange, customers don’t have to DIY their own AI. They can benefit from a connected marketplace of AI agents, partners, and capabilities that work together through MCP to accelerate innovation and enable AI interoperability across platforms:

“AgentExchange is making it easier to extend and connect with third parties and partners. Ultimately, we’re bringing the best of our partners and Salesforce together so customers can do more.” —Josh Israels, Sr. Director of Next Gen Partnerships

Microsoft is taking a similar approach:

“We're being intentional about connecting best-in-breed tech. Our Microsoft 365 products interact seamlessly, but we know that work happens in other places, like Gong. When someone works in Microsoft 365, we want them to be able to get important insights from Gong.” —Karan Nigam, Senior Director AI Agent Marketing, Microsoft

The AI that most people use today is generalized, but the companies speaking at Celebrate, along with Gong, are producing specialized AI. When their unique AI offerings are combined, shared customers get compounding value.

As Karan noted, "Gong has spent the last 10+ years perfecting the revenue intelligence game. We can try to replicate that same thing or we can just partner with you to bring the rich intelligence insights that customers love into the Microsoft ecosystem. It's as simple as that."

“We're in a state where you have the best-of-breed of Salesforce and the best-of-breed of our partners coming together in this new ecosystem, creating all types of new opportunities for our customers,” Josh added.

The MCP standard allows platforms, acting as MCP servers, to share with other platforms the types of tasks their agents can perform. When a new task needs to be handled, an MCP client uses an LLM to figure out which MCP capabilities of these servers it should use to get the job done.

Client mode: As an MCP client, Gong can securely pull data and insights (like intent signals, support tickets, or contract status) from other solutions in the Gong ecosystem straight into our AI agents, such as AI Briefer and AI Ask Anything. This helps Gong Agents provide better insights and recommendations that incorporate AI insights from our partner ecosystem.

Server mode: As an MCP server, Gong can provide our trusted revenue AI insights to external agents (Microsoft 365 Copilot, Agentforce, etc.) so they can query Gong Agents directly. This helps customers leverage Gong Agents from anywhere their team works, not just inside Gong.

By using MCP to integrate Gong Agents and insights across an AI ecosystem, we can create a standardized, secure, and scalable pattern for interoperability that will grow as the AI landscape does.

“The companies that integrate across their tech and AI functions will unlock the full value of their agents and MCP.” — Paul Vinogradov, Principal, Customer Advisory and Solutioning Practice Leader, Deloitte

Agent interoperability is not a luxury; it’s critical. The next step for revenue leaders is understanding how to make it a reality on their teams, which can only be done by working with future-thinking providers and trusted partners.

“One of the most exciting opportunities is rethinking your ecosystem as a whole. Competitors now collaborate as partners to unlock entirely new value for shared customers. ” — Josh Israels, Sr. Director of Next Gen Partnerships

As we work with partners like Microsoft, Salesforce, Deloitte, and other leading platforms to enable the future of connected, interoperable AI platforms, we’re ensuring that AI-driven insights and workflows can scale accurately and effectively across your entire GTM motion to capture more value. Interoperability isn't nice to have, it’s a must if we want to attain ROI on AI. We’re excited to work with our trusted partners to make that happen for customers.

To get the full insights from these industry leaders, check out the recorded session on the future of interoperable AI.