The news: Salesforce’s launch of Agentforce 360 is a sign that agentic AI is moving into the marketing stack, signaling that automation is becoming a core capability rather than a future experiment.

• Agentforce 360 includes upgraded Slack infrastructure and a forthcoming Agent Script tool, a conditional logic function that lets users program AI agents to better respond to “if/then” situations, per TechCrunch.
• It also introduces Agentforce Builder, a unified hub where users can build, test, and deploy AI agents.

Why it matters: AI agents are transforming from a “nice to have” asset to a strategic differentiator in customer experience and efficiency, which Salesforce competitors like Google and Microsoft are also targeting.

This shift is driving a surge in marketing technology investment overall—which we expect to reach $43.09 billion in 2027, up from $31.56 billion this year—as CMOs push budgets toward scalable automation.

Zooming out: Agentic AI is becoming central to ad tech, with companies like Salesforce, Google, Amazon, and Microsoft pitching their technology to marketers and ad agencies for campaign planning, optimization, and deployment operations, per The Information.

As AI agents move from concept to deployment, automation could simplify one of digital media’s most complex systems.

Agents can collapse the planning-to-optimization cycle, turning weeks of setup and analysis into hours, per Tarun Rathnam, Google’s global director of AI and cloud for marketers.

The opening is strategic: Whoever builds the most trusted, brand-safe agent layer could redefine how advertisers interact with every major platform.

The problem: A March S&P Global report found that 42% of companies expect to abandon their AI initiatives this year, and MIT research shows that 95% report zero returns on generative AI (genAI) investments.

The data shows that companies are experimenting with AI without integrating it into core business processes. While enthusiasm is clear, it can’t replace disciplined deployment.

Our take: Agentforce can help CMOs decide how far to push agentic AI across their marketing stack. To move from experimentation to deployment, CMOs should start with focused pilots in high-volume touchpoints like chat or email with clear success metrics, such as resolution time or customer satisfaction. Those already piloting can use agentic tools like Salesforce’s to test scalability and decide which use cases improve outcomes and which automations are best abandoned.