Salesforce positions Slack as primary interface for Agentforce 360 platform

Salesforce has unveiled Agentforce 360, an expanded platform for building and deploying AI agents across enterprises, positioning Slack as the primary interface for accessing Salesforce functionality. The announcement comes as the company attempts to move customers beyond “pilot purgatory” and deliver production-scale AI implementations, though many features remain in development phases.

What you should know: Agentforce 360 introduces several new capabilities designed to streamline enterprise AI agent deployment and management.

• The platform features Agent Script, a human-readable JSON language for authoring complex agent behavior, entering beta testing in November 2025.
• Atlas Reasoning Engine now supports Google’s Gemini large language model alongside existing OpenAI and Anthropic models, with configurable hybrid reasoning capabilities.
• Agentforce Voice will deliver “ultra-realistic” personalized voice experiences with live transcription and seamless human takeover capabilities.

Key technical features: The updated platform addresses common development and deployment challenges through integrated tools.

• Agentforce Builder allows developers to describe desired agents in natural language, automatically generating Agent Script code with debugging capabilities.
• Context Indexing, powered by Data 360, will extract and structure data for agent use, expected to launch later this month.
• Agentforce Vibes enables agents to automate development tasks throughout software lifecycles and DevOps pipelines.

Slack’s expanded role: The collaboration platform is being repositioned as Salesforce’s primary user interface, fundamentally changing how customers interact with the CRM giant.

• “We’re reimagining all of Salesforce and Slack,” said Parker Harris, Salesforce co-founder and CTO of Slack. “Imagine that you maybe don’t log into Salesforce, you don’t see Salesforce, but it’s there; it’s coming to you in Slack.”
• Salesforce plans to integrate Slack with Microsoft Teams while positioning Slack as the primary workspace for actual productivity.
• The company intends to bundle Slack more tightly with Salesforce offerings to reduce separate purchasing decisions.

Industry challenges: Data readiness remains the primary obstacle to successful AI implementation, according to Salesforce partners.

• “There are two things that really create a foundation to be able to do AI correctly. One is data readiness: You have to have access to the data in order for AI to be able to make smart decisions,” said Brian Gannuscio, SVP at Coastal, a Salesforce consultancy.
• Many customers lack strong data strategies, creating fundamental barriers to effective AI deployment.
• Prompt engineering represents a rapidly evolving skill set requirement for successful AI agent implementation.

What experts are saying: Industry analysts express skepticism about Salesforce’s complex licensing model and ambitious promises.

• “To say I’m skeptical would be an understatement. The marketing branding, as admirable and creative as it is, continues to highlight the gaping chasm between promised functionality and real-world results,” said Scott Bickley, advisory fellow at Info-Tech Research Group, a technology research firm.
• Bickley noted widespread concern about licensing complexity, requiring “multiple product layers” that are “difficult to forecast ongoing spend.”
• “Successful use cases that actually move the ROI or value creation needle are few and far between,” he added.

The pricing challenge: Cost complexity could hinder adoption despite the platform’s technical capabilities.

• Customers face stacked subscription costs including core Salesforce licenses, Slack subscriptions, Data Cloud consumption, Agentforce consumption, and specialized agent add-ons.
• “By making Slack the ‘conversational interface’ covering the generative AI layer, the price to play goes up significantly versus building your own generative AI layer,” Bickley explained.
• The uncertainty around incremental costs makes adoption “a high-risk proposition” for many enterprises.