Salesforce has evolved far beyond its origins as a simple customer relationship management (CRM) tool. Today, it's a comprehensive ecosystem of interconnected platforms, AI-powered agents, and unified data solutions that touch virtually every aspect of modern business operations—from sales and marketing to analytics, commerce, and industry-specific workflows.
In 2025, Salesforce underwent its most significant rebranding in company history, transitioning from the familiar "Cloud" naming convention to the Agentforce brand. This shift reflects Salesforce's AI-first strategy, positioning autonomous AI agents at the center of every business process. The new naming—Agentforce Sales, Agentforce Service, Agentforce Marketing, and more—signals that these aren't just software tools, but platforms where humans and AI agents work together seamlessly.
For organizations considering Salesforce or looking to expand their existing implementation, understanding this ecosystem isn't just helpful—it's essential. The right combination of Agentforce products can streamline operations, unify customer data, and drive revenue growth through intelligent automation. The wrong choices can lead to costly implementations that fail to deliver value.
Whether you're a startup evaluating your first CRM or an enterprise looking to consolidate your tech stack with autonomous AI capabilities, this guide will help you make informed decisions about your Salesforce investment.
Before diving into individual products, it's important to understand the strategic shift behind Salesforce's rebranding. The move from "Cloud" naming (Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, etc.) to "Agentforce" naming represents more than a cosmetic change—it signals a fundamental evolution in how Salesforce envisions the future of business software.
What Changed:
What Stayed the Same:Experience Cloud, Tableau, Slack, CRM Analytics, Industry Clouds (Financial Services Cloud, Health Cloud, etc.), Net Zero Cloud, and Salesforce Platform all retain their established naming.
This rebranding reflects Salesforce's vision of a future where every business process is enhanced by AI agents that can reason, plan, and take autonomous action—with appropriate human oversight.
These foundational products form the backbone of most Salesforce implementations. They address the essential functions that nearly every business needs: selling, serving customers, marketing, and engaging with stakeholders—now enhanced with embedded AI agents.
Agentforce Sales (formerly Sales Cloud) is Salesforce's flagship product and the platform that started it all. It provides a complete CRM solution designed to help sales teams manage leads, opportunities, accounts, and the entire sales pipeline—now with autonomous AI agents that can research prospects, draft communications, and advance deals while reps focus on relationship-building.
What You Can Do:
Ideal For: Any organization with a dedicated sales function—from small businesses with a handful of reps to global enterprises with thousands of salespeople. It's particularly valuable for B2B companies with complex, multi-touch sales cycles.
Learn more in the Sales Cloud Help documentation →
Agentforce Service (formerly Service Cloud) empowers customer service teams to deliver fast, personalized support across every channel. It centralizes customer inquiries from phone, email, chat, social media, and self-service portals—with AI agents handling routine inquiries autonomously and seamlessly escalating complex issues to human agents with full context.
What You Can Do:
Ideal For: Any business that provides ongoing customer support. It's particularly powerful for organizations managing high case volumes, multiple support channels, or complex service-level agreements.
Explore Service Cloud implementation details →
Agentforce Marketing (formerly Marketing Cloud) is Salesforce's comprehensive marketing automation platform. It enables marketers to create personalized, cross-channel campaigns that engage customers at every touchpoint—now with AI agents that can autonomously optimize campaigns, generate content, and adapt journeys in real-time based on customer behavior.
What You Can Do:
Ideal For: Mid-market to enterprise organizations with sophisticated marketing needs. It's perfect for businesses running multi-channel campaigns, managing large subscriber lists, or requiring advanced personalization that adapts autonomously.
Agentforce Commerce (formerly Commerce Cloud) provides everything businesses need to create seamless e-commerce experiences. It offers solutions for both B2C consumer retail and B2B wholesale relationships—now with AI agents that personalize every shopping experience, optimize merchandising, and provide conversational commerce support.
What You Can Do:
Ideal For: Retailers and brands selling directly to consumers, as well as manufacturers and distributors managing B2B sales channels. Particularly valuable for businesses wanting personalized, AI-powered shopping experiences at scale.
Experience Cloud enables organizations to build branded digital experiences for customers, partners, and employees. These can range from simple self-service portals to sophisticated partner relationship management hubs—now enhanced with AI agents that provide intelligent self-service and proactive assistance.
What You Can Do:
Ideal For: Any organization looking to extend Salesforce data and functionality to external stakeholders. Essential for businesses with partner ecosystems, subscription-based models, or customers who need intelligent self-service capabilities.
Data 360 (formerly Data Cloud) is Salesforce's unified data platform. It ingests, harmonizes, and unifies data from any source to create comprehensive customer profiles that power AI agents and personalization across the entire Agentforce 360 ecosystem. In 2026, Data 360 has become the intelligence foundation that enables autonomous agents to make informed decisions.
What You Can Do:
Ideal For: Enterprises struggling with fragmented customer data across multiple systems. It's the essential foundation for organizations wanting to deploy effective AI agents, as agents require unified, high-quality data to make intelligent decisions.
CRM Analytics (formerly Tableau CRM and Einstein Analytics) brings powerful business intelligence and analytics capabilities directly into the Salesforce platform. It enables users to explore data, uncover insights, and make data-driven decisions without leaving their CRM—now with AI that automatically surfaces the most important insights.
What You Can Do:
Ideal For: Organizations that want to democratize data access and enable self-service analytics for business users. Particularly powerful when teams need insights that combine CRM data with external sources unified through Data 360.
Tableau is the industry-leading data visualization and business intelligence platform. With the 2026 launch of Tableau Next, AI capabilities are now deeply embedded, enabling anyone to explore data through natural language conversations and receive AI-generated insights automatically.
What You Can Do:
Ideal For: Organizations of all sizes that need powerful data visualization capabilities. Particularly valuable for data teams, analysts, and business users who want to leverage AI to accelerate insight discovery and democratize analytics.
Salesforce Platform provides the tools and infrastructure to build custom applications on the Salesforce ecosystem. It includes Lightning (the modern UI framework), Flow (low-code automation), and Heroku (full-code application development)—now with Agent Builder for creating custom AI agents.
What You Can Do:
Ideal For: Organizations with unique requirements that can't be met by out-of-the-box functionality. Essential for businesses building custom AI agents, complex automations, or integrations with proprietary systems.
Salesforce Integration (formerly MuleSoft) is Salesforce's integration platform, designed to connect any application, data source, or device through APIs. It provides the infrastructure to build a connected enterprise where data flows seamlessly between systems—essential for enabling AI agents to access and act on information across your entire tech stack.
What You Can Do:
Ideal For: Enterprises with complex integration requirements spanning on-premise and cloud systems. Particularly valuable for organizations wanting their AI agents to access data and take action across multiple systems seamlessly.
Slack is Salesforce's collaboration hub, providing team messaging, file sharing, and workflow automation. In 2026, Slack has become the primary interface where humans interact with AI agents, making it the engagement layer for the entire Agentforce 360 ecosystem.
What You Can Do:
Ideal For: Any organization looking to improve team communication and collaboration. For Salesforce customers, it's the primary interface for human-agent collaboration, surfacing AI insights and enabling action where work already happens.
Agentforce AI (formerly Einstein and AI Cloud) is Salesforce's comprehensive artificial intelligence platform. It's the engine that powers autonomous AI agents across the entire Agentforce 360 ecosystem. In 2026, Agentforce AI represents the most advanced enterprise AI capability available, with agents that can reason, plan, and execute complex multi-step workflows autonomously.
Core Capabilities:
Agent Capabilities by Domain:
Sales Agents – Research prospects, draft outreach, qualify leads, update CRM, schedule meetings
Service Agents – Resolve inquiries, process returns, update orders, escalate complex issues
Marketing Agents – Generate content, optimize campaigns, analyze performance, adjust targeting
Commerce Agents – Personalize experiences, assist shoppers, optimize merchandising
Analytics Agents – Monitor metrics, surface anomalies, generate reports, recommend actions
Ideal For: Organizations ready to embrace AI-powered automation at scale. It's transformative for businesses with high-volume workflows, complex processes, or those wanting to amplify their team's capabilities while maintaining human oversight and control.
Salesforce has developed specialized Industry Clouds that extend the core platform with features, data models, and AI agents designed for specific industries.
Built for banks, wealth management firms, insurance companies, and other financial institutions. Includes AI-powered client financial profiles, relationship mapping, compliant communication tools, and integration with financial planning systems. Features autonomous agents for client onboarding and regulatory compliance.
Designed for healthcare providers, payers, and life sciences companies. Offers AI-enhanced patient relationship management, care coordination tools, EHR integrations, and HIPAA compliance features. Includes clinical AI agents for care plan optimization.
Tailored for manufacturers managing complex B2B relationships. Provides AI-powered sales agreement management, predictive account-based forecasting, partner collaboration tools, and ERP system integration.
Purpose-built for educational institutions from K-12 to higher education. Includes AI-enhanced student recruitment and admissions management, advancement and fundraising tools, and predictive student success features.
Designed specifically for nonprofit organizations. Offers AI-powered donor management, intelligent fundraising recommendations, program management, and grant tracking capabilities optimized for the nonprofit sector.
Built for consumer goods companies managing retail relationships. Includes AI-optimized retail execution features, trade promotion management, and field sales tools for managing shelf space and in-store activities.
Tailored for government agencies with features that support citizen engagement, case management, and licensing/permitting workflows. Includes FedRAMP authorization for federal deployments with AI agents designed for public sector use cases.
Net Zero Cloud is Salesforce's sustainability solution for tracking and managing environmental, social, and governance (ESG) metrics. Helps organizations measure carbon footprint, track sustainability initiatives, and report on progress toward net-zero goals with AI-powered scenario modeling.
Ideal For: Organizations in regulated or specialized industries where generic CRM capabilities fall short. They offer faster time-to-value through pre-built functionality, industry-specific AI agents, and best practices.
Agentforce Revenue Management (formerly Revenue Cloud) unifies CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote), billing, and subscription management into a comprehensive quote-to-cash solution. AI agents now automate complex quoting, optimize pricing, and manage the entire revenue lifecycle.
Key Capabilities:
Ideal For: Organizations with complex pricing models, subscription-based revenue, or high-volume quoting needs. Particularly valuable for SaaS companies and businesses with configurable products.
Agentforce Field Service (formerly Field Service Lightning) extends Agentforce Service to manage mobile workforces. AI agents now handle scheduling optimization, predictive maintenance, and real-time field support to maximize technician efficiency and customer satisfaction.
Key Capabilities:
Ideal For: Any organization that dispatches workers to customer locations. This includes utilities, telecommunications, healthcare, property management, and equipment service companies seeking to maximize efficiency through AI.
With the expanded Salesforce ecosystem and new AI capabilities, how do you determine which products are right for your organization? Here's a framework we use with clients:
Most organizations should begin with Agentforce Sales or Agentforce Service—or both. Equally important: implement Data 360 early to establish the unified data foundation that AI agents require to be effective.
Rather than buying every product upfront, identify your highest-priority use cases and add capabilities incrementally:
If you operate in healthcare, financial services, or another regulated industry, evaluate the relevant Industry Cloud. These products can dramatically accelerate implementation by providing pre-built compliance features, industry-specific data models, and AI agents trained for your sector.
Data 360 is no longer optional—it's the foundation for effective AI. Ensure your data unification strategy is in place before deploying autonomous agents at scale.
Agentforce AI capabilities are most powerful when built on a foundation of clean, unified data and clear human oversight policies. Start with well-defined use cases where AI can augment human capabilities, then expand as you build confidence and governance frameworks.
The most successful implementations thoughtfully design how humans and AI agents work together. Define escalation paths, approval workflows, and oversight mechanisms from the start.
The Salesforce ecosystem is vast and evolving rapidly, especially with the AI transformation. Working with an experienced implementation partner can help you avoid costly mistakes, accelerate time-to-value, and ensure you're leveraging best practices for human-AI collaboration.
The Salesforce ecosystem has entered a new era with Agentforce. The 2025 rebrand signals more than a naming change—it represents a fundamental shift toward AI-first business operations where autonomous agents and humans work together to deliver exceptional customer experiences.
From core CRM capabilities to industry-specific solutions and cutting-edge AI agents, there's a configuration that fits virtually every business need. The key is approaching your Salesforce investment strategically—starting with a solid data foundation, building on proven success, and thoughtfully designing how your team will collaborate with AI agents.
Whether you're just getting started or looking to enhance your existing deployment with AI capabilities, the journey to a more intelligent, automated business begins with understanding the landscape.
This guide reflects the Salesforce product portfolio as of January 2026, following the major Agentforce rebranding in 2025. Salesforce continues to rapidly evolve its AI capabilities, so we recommend consulting with a certified partner for the most current information.
Vantage Point is a specialized Salesforce and HubSpot consultancy serving the financial services industry. We help wealth management firms, banks, credit unions, insurance providers, and fintech companies transform their client relationships through intelligent CRM implementations. Our team of 100% senior-level, certified professionals combines deep financial services expertise with technical excellence to deliver solutions that drive measurable results.
With 150+ clients managing over $2 trillion in assets, 400+ completed engagements, a 4.71/5 client satisfaction rating, and 95%+ client retention, we've earned the trust of financial services firms nationwide.
David Cockrum, Founder & CEO
David founded Vantage Point after serving as COO in the financial services industry and spending 13+ years as a Salesforce user. This insider perspective informs our approach to every engagement—we understand your challenges because we've lived them. David leads Vantage Point's mission to bridge the gap between powerful CRM platforms and the specific needs of financial services organizations.