Editor’s Note: This is a foreword from the latest issue of Salesforce Futures Magazine, which explores the ideas that have shaped the Futures team’s thinking about the Agentic Enterprise.
Eighteen months ago, Salesforce Futures debuted Futures with our issue on Personal AI Agents. Subsequent issues looked at Agents at Work and Inventing with Agents. The magazine began in response to a gap we saw in the conversation around AI: too much hype, too much doom, and not enough clear-eyed imagination and practical analysis of the implications of what’s next for business.
Since the launch of Agentforce at Dreamforce just over a year ago, things have changed dramatically.
When we began exploring agents, it felt early. Since the launch of Agentforce at Dreamforce just over a year ago, things have changed dramatically. Today, agents — elegantly defined by Simon Willison as ‘a system that uses tools in a loop to pursue a goal’ — are everywhere. And what Salesforce Chief AI Scientist Silvio Savarese calls a series of “boring breakthroughs” is making powerful, value-delivering AI available to everyone.
The wisps of inspiration we started exploring in 2024 have now built into a towering Agentic Wave that is crashing down on businesses everywhere, creating new opportunities and new questions. We’ve framed this issue of Futures around that theme and three key areas of focus: agentics, robotics, and the practice of doing futures work in this space.
While we’ve shifted to a single annual issue of Futures, we’ve continued publishing on the Salesforce Newsroom. This issue brings together the highlights from that work, along with new pieces and contributions from several brilliant Salesforce colleagues. Together, they capture the ideas that have most shaped our thinking about the agentic enterprise.
Agentics
When everyone has agents, where will real, durable competitive advantage come from? The winners won’t be those with the most automation, but those with the best learning loops between people and machines, the most adaptable autonomic core, and the deepest customer-centricity. Leaders who keep learning won’t just drive productivity — they’ll rewire their businesses into agentic enterprises that build lasting relationships.
We can’t navigate new waters with old maps. As Peter Schwartz says, “If you get your map wrong, you do the wrong thing.” We need new frameworks, stories, and mental models to make sense of the terrain. Think of this issue as a sketchbook of emerging contours — a starting point for the maps we’ll need in a world of agents.
We introduce the Autonomic Core, a model for reimagining your business around the balance between automated and intentional functions. This frame, drawn from the human body, offers a fresh way to think about how your organization’s architecture might evolve in the agentic era.
Distinguished AI Architect Max Kirby explores how agentic systems can amplify human ingenuity. Silvio Savarese outlines our AI Research team’s concept of Enterprise General Intelligence and its Capability–Consistency Matrix, a useful framework for evaluating AI’s utility in the enterprise. And Melissa Forbes offers a provocative look at how agents are empowering nonprofits to scale their impact in sustainability and disaster response.
Finally, we revisit Personal AI Futures, grading our predictions from the first issue of Futures and updating our perspective on what’s next.
Robotics
Because this is Futures, we also look beyond the crest of the current agentic wave — toward what happens as agents leap from the digital world into the physical. Included is our piece on The Three Driving Forces of Enterprise Robotics and Speculative Futures, which push the horizon even further. We also excerpt from a piece by Salesforce Ventures’ Emily Zhao and Pascha Hao, unpacking The Robotics Breakout Moment.
Futures Practice
The Agentic Wave isn’t just changing technology — it’s changing how we lead. In our Futures Practice sections, you’ll find practical examples of how Salesforce leaders apply futures thinking to turn disruption into opportunity, inspire experimentation, and use foresight as a lever for strategic action.
The future doesn’t arrive all at once. It appears in small, transformative moments: a nurse spending five more minutes with a patient; a farmer protecting a crop with real-time data; a robot helping someone up the stairs. These aren’t distant possibilities; they’re early signals of a world already in motion.
The ideas in these pages aren’t final answers; they’re invitations to build agentic enterprises that learn continuously, adapt constantly, and keep humans at the center.
The Agentic Wave won’t wait for perfect strategies. Before you can surf, you have to swim. It requires the courage to experiment, the discipline to learn, and the judgment to balance agents and humans in your own unique way. After nearly two years of mapping AI futures, it’s time to begin — even as we keep drawing the map.
Salesforce Futures
More information:
- Read the full issue of Futures Magazine and find more insights from the Salesforce Futures team
- Understand how much of your business should run on its own
- Find out why imagination should shape the future of work
- Read more on how Agentforce is inventing the future of agents
- Learn more about personal AI agents
