Connections 2026: The game has changed for marketers

Salesforce’s annual Connections conference wrapped up in Chicago this week, and for us at Turnberry, it started with a perfect setup: taking clients to watch the Cubs at Wrigley Field before the keynote event began. As it turns out, it was exactly the right mindset. What Salesforce unveiled wasn’t a single marquee feature. It was a full lineup. Someone cue my walkup song: Danza Kuduro by Don Omar.

From operators to makers

For too long, marketers have been the ones doing everything, running between positions, covering gaps, managing the logistics that should have been handled elsewhere. The promise of Connections 2026 is that AI agents can step into those roles, freeing marketers to focus on what they’re actually built for: strategy, creativity, and the moments that move customers. Salesforce called it “The Age of Marketing Makers,” and we think that framing is exactly right.

Meet the roster

Salesforce introduced a full lineup of AI agents, each with a specific role to play. Here is a sampling of what is generally available and yet to come:

• Agentic segmentation: The leadoff hitter gets things moving fast by letting marketers build campaign-ready audiences from plain language prompts, no SQL or data engineering required.
• Piper the AI SDR agent: Your cleanup hitter for inbound pipeline. Piper identifies and qualifies website visitors in real time, routing warm prospects to sales automatically, no forms, no delays, no dropped leads.
• Hunter the prospecting agent: The relentless middle-of-the-order batter. Hunter autonomously finds new contacts, initiates outreach, and runs nurture sequences so your sales team can focus on conversations that actually close.
• Agentforce content agent: The versatile utility player. Marketers describe a campaign, and the agent generates omnichannel content across email, SMS, RCS, and mobile, grounded in brand guidelines and localized automatically.
• Agentforce marketing goals agent: The closer. Marketers set goals, budgets, and guardrails while this agent builds, launches, and continuously optimizes campaigns using live behavioral signals until the job is done.
• Campaign management in Slack via MCP: The coaching staff. Thanks to Headless 360, this capability ties the whole lineup together by letting marketers manage segments, campaigns, journeys, and performance insights conversationally from Slack, without ever leaving the dugout. It’s a clear signal that Salesforce sees Slack becoming the command center where marketing strategy gets called.

What this means for marketers

No great team wins on talent alone. The foundation of clean data, trusted integrations, and a clear strategy is what makes the lineup work. Teams that have invested in Data 360 and Agentforce are going to be positioned to move fast with these new capabilities.

The pace of innovation isn’t slowing down. But with the right team on the field, the opportunity ahead for marketers is genuinely remarkable.

Interested in learning more about what Connections 2026 means for your marketing strategy, or ready to build your agentic marketing roster? We’d love to help you put the right players in place.