A new year brings new expectations for Salesforce: clearer ROI, smarter automation, and more disciplined use of AI. As organizations move from experimentation to execution, platform decisions in 2026 will increasingly be judged on cost, scalability, governance, and real business impact.

This month’s newsletter is designed to help you start the year with focus. We’re highlighting:

1. How clients are evaluating AI agents – including cost trade-offs between Agentforce and custom solutions
2. Platform and architecture trends
3. Key planning questions to help align your 2026 Salesforce roadmap to business priorities

🌍 Salesforce Ecosystem Watch

AI Moving from Experimentation to Economics

• Interest in AI agents is accelerating – but so is scrutiny around cost, governance, and long-term ownership
• Organizations are asking not just “What can AI do?” but “What does it cost to run, scale, and govern?”
• Native capabilities like Agentforce are increasingly evaluated alongside custom-built AI solutions

Hyper-Automation & Composable Architecture

• Continued shift away from siloed automations toward modular, composable automation
• Greater adoption of declarative tools such as Flow, OmniStudio, and MuleSoft Composer
• Event-driven architectures (Platform Events, Pub/Sub) replacing brittle, point-to-point logic
• Reusable subflows and shared components becoming standard design patterns

Digital Experience Becoming a Product

• Experience Cloud evolving beyond traditional portals into personalized, outcome-driven digital experiences
• Increased use of conversational UI, guided flows, and real-time personalization
• Stronger alignment between self-service, automation, and live service escalation

🧭 Your 2026 Salesforce Planning & Roadmap

January is an ideal time to pressure-test assumptions and ensure Salesforce is aligned with how your business will operate this year – not how it operated last year.

2026 Goals & Business Priorities

• What are your top objectives for 2026?
  • Growth, retention, efficiency, cost reduction, new offerings, or M&A
• Which new initiatives will impact Salesforce?
  • New products, markets, channels, or system consolidations

Operating Model Changes

• Do current page layouts, automations, and processes still fit?
• Where has custom logic accumulated technical or operational debt?

Platform Utilization & Cost Awareness

• Which Salesforce features or licenses are underutilized?
• Are you paying for capabilities that aren’t fully adopted?
• Could newer standard features replace older custom solutions?

AI, Data, and Advanced Capabilities

• Where do AI and advanced data capabilities fit into your roadmap?
• Do you need clarity on where to start versus what to build?

Adoption, Data Quality & Security

• Do users find Salesforce intuitive and reliable?
• Are data quality, backup/recovery, and security posture where they need to be?

🎧 Featured Content:
AI Cost, Governance & 2026 Readiness

🎙️CirriusTalk Podcast – Agentforce vs Custom Agents: An Apples-to-Apples Costing Comparison

AAs AI agents become more common in Salesforce environments, many teams are evaluating whether to adopt Agentforce or invest in custom AI agents. We walk through a practical, cost-focused comparison to help teams make informed decisions.

• Licensing, development, and operational cost differences
• Time-to-value and scalability considerations
• Where Agentforce delivers clear advantages
• Scenarios where custom agents may still make sense
• What service-centric orgs should evaluate before committing in 2026

📝 Companion Blog – Cost of Agentforce vs Custom AI Agent

• Upfront vs ongoing cost structures
• Maintenance, governance, and scalability trade-offs
• Real-world decision frameworks for service organizations
• How to avoid over-engineering AI solutions early

🤝 Next Steps:
Turn January Planning into Action

• Share the 2026 planning questions with your leadership and Salesforce stakeholders
• Identify one focus area for Q1:
  • AI enablement
  • Automation modernization
  • Security and governance
  • Data quality and adoption
• Schedule a Roadmap Review with your Cirrius Consultant to:
  • Align Salesforce to 2026 business priorities
  • Identify quick wins vs longer-term investments
  • Build a prioritized backlog and high-level 2026 roadmap