Salesforce launched Agentforce 360 at its Dreamforce conference, marking a pivotal moment in enterprise AI where the platform wars have officially begun. This isn't just another product announcement—it's a comprehensive architecture that connects humans, AI agents, apps, and data across entire organizations, setting a new standard for how businesses will operate in what Salesforce calls the "Agentic Enterprise".

What Developers Are Building With

The platform introduces Agent Script, a prompting tool entering beta in November that lets developers program AI agents to handle complex "if/then" situations with unprecedented flexibility. Think of it as giving your agents the ability to reason through scenarios rather than simply pattern-match responses. Developers can tap into reasoning models from Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google Gemini to power these capabilities.

Agentforce Builder consolidates the entire build-test-deploy cycle into a single workspace, launching in beta next month. The tool includes Agentforce Vibes, an enterprise-grade vibe coding feature that dramatically accelerates development. If you've been juggling multiple platforms to ship agents, this unified approach cuts that complexity significantly.

For developers working in Slack, the integration expands throughout October and into early 2026, surfacing core Agentforce apps including Sales, IT, and HR agents directly in channels. Slack's piloting a reimagined Slackbot that learns individual user patterns and proactively surfaces insights—essentially turning every workspace into an agent-enabled environment.

The Business Case Gets Concrete

The ROI numbers coming out of early deployments are striking. Simple Modern, a drinkware brand, automated 79% of support tickets with a 98% customer satisfaction rating, saving their six-person team 80 hours weekly—equivalent to two full-time employees. Their AI agent "Hallie" went from setup to production in one week, handling the repetitive questions that previously created weekend backlogs.

Kitsa transformed clinical trial site selection using AWS automation, achieving 91% cost savings and 96% faster data acquisition—processing in days what previously required months. Their solution maintains 96% coverage in data extraction while meeting full regulatory compliance for life sciences.

Ramp built an expense management agent in under two hours that handles approval routing, policy checking, and automated notifications—work that previously demanded months of custom development. Clay achieved 10× growth through automated outreach agents that qualify leads, craft personalized emails, and schedule meetings.

Implementation timelines are becoming predictable. The industry standard emerging is a six-week blueprint: two weeks for integration and business context, two weeks for persona building and initial automations, and two weeks for optimization and scaling. Companies are targeting 30%+ automation of interactions within this timeframe.

Understanding the Shift

If you're new to AI agents, here's what's changed: traditional AI assistants wait for you to ask questions and provide answers. Agents take action on your behalf. Salesforce CTO Parker Harris calls this "the biggest transition in technology" he's experienced—and he helped pioneer the SaaS movement.

Consider how Anna's travel agent works in practice. She requests a Singapore business trip, and her agent queries flight, hotel, and transport APIs, scores options using multiple variables (price, schedule, loyalty programs), presents three recommendations with rationale, and executes bookings through secure payment—all in under two minutes. If something fails, the agent automatically rolls back dependent actions and suggests alternatives. This is transactional autonomy with safety and oversight built in.

Marc Benioff, Salesforce CEO, frames it as "AI elevating human potential" rather than replacing people. In the Agentic Enterprise model, sales leads are never missed, service operates 24/7, and every employee has an AI partner accelerating decisions.

Google is simultaneously launching its own play with Gemini Enterprise, providing businesses "a single front door" to chat with enterprise data, search information, and deploy agents. The company introduced an AI Agent Finder tool to help businesses discover and procure agents, plus the Gemini Enterprise Agent Ready (GEAR) program for developers.

Market Realities and Cautions

Gartner released research warning that the "mass proliferation" of agentic tools "far exceeds present demand". The firm projects a market correction and consolidation phase, though analysts emphasize this is "a regular part of the product life cycle, not a sign of inevitable economic crisis". For buyers, this means more options today but likely fewer, more mature platforms tomorrow as larger providers consolidate the space.

Salesforce has shipped four major Agentforce releases in 12 months with thousands of customer deployments, positioning itself as production-ready while competitors showcase concepts. As the company's Srini Tallapragada notes: "We don't want customers stuck in what I call the pilot bucket".

The question facing organizations is no longer whether to deploy agents, but which platform will orchestrate them as the technology moves from proof-of-concept to production scale.