Fin vs Agentforce: Who Answers, Who Acts

Salesforce Now Owns Two AI Agents for Customer Service

You run service on Salesforce. In September, Salesforce closed its acquisition of Fin by Salesforce, the AI customer service agent formerly known as Intercom. You already have Agentforce, or a plan for it. Now your account team has a second agent to show you.

So the question lands on your desk: Fin vs Agentforce. Which one do we buy?

That is the wrong question. Salesforce has said plainly that Fin complements Agentforce. The useful question is which part of the work each agent should own, and how work passes between them without your customer explaining the problem twice.

Our answer fits on one line. Fin answers. Agentforce acts. Service Cloud remembers.

What Changed When Salesforce Bought Fin

Salesforce announced the deal in June at roughly $3.6 billion and completed the acquisition on September 10, 2026. Fin now sits inside Salesforce AI Labs and keeps serving its customer base, on Salesforce and on other helpdesks.

The resolution rate is reported by Fin, and it swings widely with the quality of the knowledge behind it. Keep that in mind; it comes back later.

Fin did not arrive to replace anything. Salesforce positions it as the fast path for service conversations, and Agentforce as the platform for enterprise scale agentic work across every Salesforce cloud. The two overlap at exactly one spot: the front door of customer service. Getting the work placed correctly at that door is where the value is.

Fin vs Agentforce: Three Jobs, Not One Choice

Stop comparing the two agents as rivals and look at the jobs. There are three, and each has a clear owner.

Most planning debates end once you take the top reasons customers reach out to your service team and put each one into one of those three boxes. The trick is having a consistent way to decide.

The Routing Test: Who Handles Each Customer Request

Run every type of customer request through five questions before you configure anything. Answers that mostly point left go to Fin. Answers that mostly point right go to Agentforce. A split result usually means the conversation needs both, with a handoff in the middle.

1. Is the outcome an answer or a change? Fin if the customer leaves with an answer. Agentforce if something in your systems has to change.
2. How many steps and objects does it touch? Fin for a lookup or a short procedure. Agentforce for multi step work across objects, clouds or outside systems.
3. Who is on the other side? Fin for customers in a service conversation. Agentforce for customers, employees, reps and partners alike.
4. How much governance does the outcome need? Fin for standard service guardrails. Agentforce when audit, field level security or regulation depends on it.
5. What is already running? Fin for new channels and request types with no agent today. Agentforce where a working deployment is already earning its keep.

Here is the test applied to requests most service teams will recognize:

• “Where is my order?” across chat, SMS and email: Fin. High volume, answerable from knowledge and one lookup, clean outcome.
• Password resets, how to questions and return policy: Fin. The resolution is the whole job.
• A refund that touches Order, Case, Entitlement and the ERP: Agentforce. A multi step transaction that needs an audit trail and platform governance.
• A warranty claim that dispatches a field technician: Agentforce. It crosses Service Cloud and Field Service, and every step is a record change.
• A customer asks about an order, then wants to change it: both. Fin answers, opens the Case with context, and Agentforce makes the change. This is the edge case to design for.
• An upset key account threatening to cancel: your team. Judgment and relationship risk belong with a person who has full context.
• An Agentforce service agent already meeting its targets: keep it. Add Fin to channels it does not cover and compare.

We used the same discipline when we sorted nine Agentforce use cases into what belongs on the platform and what does not. The answer is rarely all or nothing.

How the Handoff Between Fin and Agentforce Works Today

Fin already hands off to people in Service Cloud. It can pass the conversation live in the same session, or create a Case in your queue with the full transcript and a summary. It writes back to Contact, Account and Case and follows your existing assignment rules.

A native handoff from Fin to Agentforce has not been published yet. Until it is, the Case is the right contract between them, because it already carries everything both agents and your team need. Four rules keep it clean:

• The Case is the contract. Fin opens or updates it with the transcript, summary, intent and what it already tried.
• State lives in Salesforce. Status and handoff reason fields decide what happens next, not either agent’s memory.
• Agentforce picks up from the record. A record triggered Flow or an Omni-Channel route assigns the transaction to an Agentforce agent.
• People own the exceptions. Judgment calls go to a rep with both agents’ notes attached.

This pattern works today and carries forward. When native integration ships, the routing logic moves. The data model does not. It is the same reason we argue that your agents’ memory belongs in the platform, not inside any one agent.

Salesforce is still defining a few pieces, so watch for these announcements:

• A native agent to agent handoff from Fin to Agentforce
• How Fin conversations appear in Omni-Channel
• Grounding Fin directly in Data 360
• How Fin Voice and Agentforce Voice will be positioned

What Fin and Agentforce Actually Cost

The pricing models look different because they buy different things.

• Fin charges per outcome. Published list pricing is $0.99 per outcome. Outcomes include resolutions and certain handoffs and routings, and a conversation that ends without an outcome is not billed as one.
• Agentforce charges per action. Flex Credits are published at $500 per 100,000 credits, which works out to about $0.10 per standard action. A typical service conversation takes 5 to 15 actions, so roughly $0.50 to $1.50.

Per conversation, the two land in a similar range. Fin sells an outcome. Agentforce sells capacity to do work, and you decide how much work each conversation needs. The only honest comparison is to model both against your real contact mix, including how many conversations need a transaction behind them.

Salesforce revises pricing and packaging regularly and enterprise agreements vary. Treat these figures as directional and confirm current terms before you budget.

Four Ways a Fin and Agentforce Rollout Goes Wrong

Each one comes from the same root cause: treating two complementary agents as a single choice.

Where to Start

Fin vs Agentforce: Common Questions

Is Salesforce replacing Agentforce with Fin?

No. Salesforce has said Fin complements Agentforce. Fin is a packaged agent for customer service conversations. Agentforce remains the agent platform across every Salesforce cloud, including sales, field service, commerce and employee agents.

Can Fin hand off to Agentforce?

Not natively yet. Fin hands off to people in Service Cloud today, live or as a Case. Until Salesforce publishes a direct agent to agent handoff, use the Case as the contract: Fin records what it learned, and a Flow or Omni-Channel route assigns the follow-on work to Agentforce.

Is Fin cheaper than Agentforce?

Per conversation they land in a similar range. Fin lists at $0.99 per outcome. Agentforce runs about $0.10 per action, or roughly $0.50 to $1.50 for a typical conversation. The real difference is that Fin bills for outcomes while Agentforce bills for the work performed.

Should we move our existing Agentforce service agent to Fin?

Not if it is meeting its targets. A working Agentforce agent is an asset. Add Fin to channels and request types with no agent today, measure both, and let the results decide what moves.

We Build Both Sides of the Handoff

Cirrius has delivered more than 2,500 Salesforce implementations, and we build and run AI agents every day, including inside our own business. We know Agentforce, we know Service Cloud, and we know where Fin fits between them.

Bring the top twenty reasons your customers reach out to one working session. We will run them through the routing test, check the knowledge behind the Fin candidates, and sketch the Case design that connects Fin, Agentforce and your team.

Book your Fin and Agentforce routing session.