Dreamforce 2025: From Automation to Autonomous with Agentforce Marketing 

By Tammy Begley, Director of Marketing Automation & Experience 

At Dreamforce 2025, Salesforce reaffirmed the message we heard earlier this year at Connections 2025 and made it clear that the next chapter in marketing is here. 

A legacy rooted in innovation 

The keynote opened with a sense of community and continuity. Steve Hammond (EVP & GM, Agentforce Marketing) welcomed the packed audience and reflected on the 25-year legacy of ExactTarget, tying its history of marketing‐technology innovation to Salesforce’s next big evolution. His message: the rise of AI and agents is transforming the fabric of customer engagement, and marketers need to rethink how they connect with audiences. 

“AI and agents are changing everything… This is the time when we can take our marketing technologies and turn them from outbound communications into two-way conversations.”

With this, the shift was framed as more than incremental: it marked a clear step change from automation to interaction, from messages sent to conversations started. 

Ending “Do-Not-Reply” Marketing 

In one of the most relatable moments of the keynote, Matthew Shultz called out a decade of one-way, broadcast-style marketing a time defined, as he put it, by three words: “Do not reply.” Marketers have been constrained by tools that push messages out rather than invite customers in

But the shift is here. 

“We all know the truth. We actually need to send better,” Shultz said, reframing email not as a static channel but a living conversation. 

With two-way email launching in February and new mobile capabilities rolling out this month, Agentforce Marketing weaves WhatsApp and SMS into the same connected dialogue marking the end of do-not-reply marketing and the beginning of truly conversational engagement. 

The Data Foundation for Everything 

Before you can scale agents, you must get the data right. Natalie  Mathes reminded marketers: 

“None of it works without data… Data is a marketer’s number one challenge and it’s the most under-utilized asset.” 

She underscored the need for a unified foundation before layering on AI and automation. With Salesforce Data 360 now built directly into Agentforce Marketing, teams can connect signals across marketing, sales, service and commerce into one unified profile. 

“When your data is unified and actionable across every app, channel, and Agentforce, marketing becomes seamless,” Mathes explained. 

This shift moves organizations “from siloed campaigns to a unified experience, from disjointed analytics to a centralized view, from custom coding to adaptive experiences.”
With Data 360 available now, Journey Decisioning coming this month, and Business Units launching in February, the path to agentic marketing starts with a single, connected data layer. 

Experiences that adapt with every customer 

Building on the foundation of unified data, Abbie Spaans demonstrated how Agentforce Marketing transforms static websites into adaptive, conversational experiences that feel like your best salesperson, service rep and marketer combined. By embedding Agentforce directly into digital experiences, every interaction can evolve into a personalized dialogue that responds to intent in real‐time. 

“What if every experience could spark a two-way conversation? What if agentic websites turned every page visit into a personalized dialogue?

The result: marketing that doesn’t just react to customers it adapts with them across every channel and department. Two-way SMS is generally available now, and adaptive websites will reach general availability this December marking a new chapter in how marketers deliver connected, agentic experiences. 

Creativity at the Speed of AI 

Eric Zenz addressed a truth every marketer knows: despite its name, marketing automation hasn’t always felt automatic. 

“For years, marketing automation hasn’t exactly been automatic… marketers spend an average of seven and a half weeks building and launching campaigns.” 

The new Agentforce model flips that on its head empowering marketers to set the strategy while AI agents handle the execution

“What if you could set the vision for a campaign and delegate the rest? That’s where Agentforce Marketing comes in. It’s like an agency of AI agents built just for you,” Zenz explained. 

Salesforce also unveiled AI Content Partnerships with tools like Writer, Jasper, Bynder, Typeface, and Contentstack bringing brand-safe, composable AI content creation natively into the platform.
With general availability expected between October and November 2025, marketers will soon be able to brief campaigns in Slack and watch Agentforce generate the copy, creative and channel delivery plans in minutes. Making marketing not just faster, but truly autonomous. 

Insights that Turn into Impact 

Closing out the keynote, Prasanna (PR) Vijayakumar introduced the fourth pillar of Agentforce Marketing: optimization. 

“Over half of marketing spend is wasted because of bad strategy, targeting, or just after-the-fact optimization.

In the era of Agentforce Marketing: data doesn’t sleep it learns. 

“Optimization agents surface those insights directly to you inside Slack so that your marketers can act fast. These turn insights into impact.

Operating across media spend, creative and analytics, these agents continuously refine performance and feed improvements back into live campaigns

 “This is marketing that never sleeps. It learns, it adapts, and it acts,” PR said. And in doing so underlining Salesforce’s vision for autonomous marketing

When combined with Creation, Orchestration and Activation Agents, marketers gain a full feedback loop that runs on its own with Slack OS as the command centre surfacing insights, managing approvals, and coordinating agents in real-time

 “Every second you wait to optimize is money wasted.” 

With Paid Media Optimization available now, Unified Analytics coming in October, Clean Rooms in December, and Multi-Touch Attribution in February, the path from insight to impact is no longer a dream, it’s built directly into Agentforce and Data 360. 

A Community Moment 

To close the keynote, Steve Hammond returned the spotlight to the community — celebrating the Trailblazers who continue to shape the future of Salesforce Marketing Cloud. A standout moment came when Ali Saeed from the Dubai community was honored with a Golden Hoodie, a symbol of innovation and impact within the ecosystem.

Hammond reminded the audience that every capability showcased at Dreamforce, from Agentforce conversations to Data 360 and Optimisation Agents, is already available on current licenses. 

For marketers eager to get started, he encouraged small, intentional steps: 

• Flip one high-volume conversation into a two-way exchange. 

• Connect Data 360 to power smarter journeys. 

• Set creative and compliance guardrails.
  Stand up a composable content workflow with an AI partner. 

• Finally, close the loop in Slack by turning insights into instant actions. 

It was a fitting conclusion. A reminder that the future of marketing isn’t a product release; it’s a community of innovators bringing agentic marketing to life, one conversation at a time. 

Why this matters for Bluprintx clients 

For our Bluprintx audience, the key takeaway from Dreamforce 2025 is this: the era of simple marketing automation is giving way to autonomous, conversational, agent-driven engagement. What does that mean in practice? 

• Your marketing stack can evolve: you don’t need to rip and replace everything Agentforce Marketing builds on what you already have
• Data becomes core: if your data is fragmented, now is the time to unify and clean. Without that, even the best agent will stumble
• Experiences are now dynamic: websites, emails, SMS and chat don’t have to be one-way anymore. They can react and adapt in real time based on intent
• Content and creative workflows are changing: the marketer’s role shifts from “build every element” to “brief the strategy, review the output.
• Insight loops are real: optimization doesn’t happen after the campaign ends; it happens continuously, with AI agents adjusting in real‐time and delivering actionable insights into Slack.
• Licence structure and ROI matter: Salesforce is signaling that the value of marketing will increasingly be about outcomes, not simply seats or features. Investing in agentic marketing now means you’re aligning with that shift. 

What to do next 

If you’re thinking “how do we get started?”, here’s a recommended path: 

1. Audit your conversations. Pick a high-volume channel (email, SMS, chat) and convert one message flow into a true two-way interaction
2. Check your data foundation. Is your customer view unified across marketing, sales and service? If not, treat this as a priority
3. Define your guardrails. What are your brand rules, compliance needs, and tone of voice? These define how your agents behave
4. Brief your first agentic campaign. Set a strategy, channel mix and outcome, then experiment with one of the AI content partnerships. 
5. Close the feedback loop. Ensure you have real-time insights coming into Slack (or your collaboration-tool hub) and set up agents to optimize as they run.