Last week, the ICC Sydney was the centre of the Salesforce world. For those of us who spent time in the Darling Harbour precinct, the message was clear, the Agentic Era is no longer a future roadmap item; it’s the live reality for Australian organisations in 2026.
With Spring ’26 now rolling into local production instances, we’ve moved from discussing AI potential to seeing autonomous agents handle complex local workflows, from donor self-service to multi-channel commercial campaigns.
Here is your post-World Tour briefing and the key platform updates you need to know this month.
With the Spring ’26 Release now active in our local production instances, we’ve moved from discussing AI potential to seeing autonomous agents handle complex local workflows. In the commercial sector, the conversation was dominated by the shift from manual automation to autonomous reasoning. We saw a clear focus on how Data 360 provides the necessary foundation for these agents to act with precision.
The Agentforce transformation
The UI change is now rolling out, and it’s more than just a fresh coat of paint. You’ve likely seen Salesforce shifting core products under the Agentforce banner, including Sales, Service, and Marketing. In your org, you’ll notice new menu items like Agent Topics and Atlas Reasoning.
This signals a deeper integration where AI agents assist with core business workflows rather than sitting on the sidelines. Perhaps the most significant shift for leadership is how we measure this value. Salesforce has introduced the Agentic Work Unit (AWU), a new unit of measurement to quantify exactly what your agents are getting done.
While tokens tell you how much an AI is talking, an AWU tracks discrete tasks, such as a reasoning chain completed or a tool invoked. For most teams, the shift isn’t about more AI, it’s about fewer handoffs and using these metrics to prove how agents are reducing operational drag.
Native conversation insights
A significant technical win in this release is that Einstein Conversation Insights (ECI) data can now be accessed natively within Salesforce reporting and dashboards. This means you can now build standard Salesforce reports and dashboards using your voice call data without needing external storage buckets.
Marketing Cloud Engagement: Two-way conversations
We’ve officially entered the era of the interactive inbox. New features now support two-way conversational email, allowing your customers to reply directly to marketing sends. These responses can be handled by an agent for simple inquiries or escalated to your team through Service Cloud, turning a broadcast channel into a genuine engagement tool.
Essential platform updates
As we move into the new era, several legacy features are officially reaching the end of the road. We recommend your team reviews these dates immediately to avoid service interruptions.
- Legacy Chat and Live Agent (Retired 14 Feb 2026): This is now retired. If you haven’t already, you’ll need to migrate to Messaging for In-App and Web to maintain your chat capabilities.
- Salesforce-to-Salesforce (Spring ’26): This is now in maintenance mode. Explore cross-org sharing within Data 360.
- Standard Omni-Channel (June 2026): Retirement is looming. If you are still on the standard version, start your move to Enhanced Omni-Channel now to ensure a smooth transition before mid-year.
Actions to take
Review your sandbox settings for the new Blackhole feature. When enabled in your full or partial sandboxes, it automatically discards all outbound emails. It’s an essential safety net that allows your team to test complex campaign logic with real data without the risk of a test email ever reaching a customer’s inbox.
