If we look back at the state of the Salesforce ecosystem this time last year, sentiments around Agentforce, the current driving force behind the CRM giant, were very different from what they are now. In 2026, Agentforce has officially broken free from its hype cycle, and it seems that, finally, adoption numbers are beginning to look truly impressive.
However, as we’ve examined before, adoption numbers do not necessarily paint the full picture, especially when it comes down to customer experiences. So Salesforce may be raving about glitzy enterprise deals, but what about the little guy? How are small to medium businesses (SMBs) faring with Agentforce, and is it as simple to become a customer if you don’t have a mega budget or a giant team behind you?
The State of Agentforce
The latest Agentforce numbers indicate just how far the product has come since launch, with 18,500 Agentforce deals closed in 2025 (9,500 paid), along with 11.4 trillion tokens processed. The number of deals has increased exponentially, and the number of used tokens indicates that Agentforce is indeed being used by existing customers, but the divide between paid and unpaid deals continues to raise questions around the true scale of adoption and its circumstances.
These figures told the story of Agentforce as of Salesforce’s last financial reporting period, with more details to be expected come the end of May when it announces its Q1 2027 results.
Salesforce’s Renewed SMB Focus
From the get-go, Agentforce was always marketed as a major enterprise solution. Some of its biggest customers include Williams Sonoma, Pepsi Co, Pandora, Accenture, IBM, FedEx, and more. These customers fall into a variety of different categories, including Moderna in health care and Freshfields in law.
Agentforce’s wealth of tools and capabilities make it perfect for larger businesses; they can utilize much more than the standard agent building capabilities if budgets and skills allow, including Agentforce Labs, eVerse, and MuleSoft Agent Fabric.
Nevertheless, Salesforce has also recently ensured that SMBs can make the most of Agentforce, too, with the addition of some Agentforce capabilities to SMB-specific editions of its CRM last month. This means that customers using its Suites – Free, Starter, and Pro – now have access to Agentforce features, reducing the cost barrier issue that many smaller businesses likely run into when choosing whether or not to adopt the technology.
Christine Marshall, our Technical Content Lead here at SF Ben, wrote a detailed guide on her initial experience with the freemium offerings, which you can read here.
Salesforce’s “freemium” offerings serve a clear purpose: reach the businesses on the smaller side of the scale that may not be able to afford multiple Agentforce licences and stop them from turning to other free-first CRM options like HubSpot or Zoho, which are also battling for a place in the market. The wide net customer focus is there, but how difficult is it for existing customers or partners to get stuck in?
How Salesforce Is Incentivizing Agent Work
In early March, Salesforce massively overhauled its existing Partner Program, making particular amendments to the consulting partner side to encourage partners to focus more on agentic AI and delivering value there.
Salesforce detailed that going forward, partners would be rewarded for creating and proving “verifiable customer outcomes” as well as success within the Agentic Enterprise. The reward? A potentially less-admin-heavy pipeline, increased investment, and incentives within both the sales and delivery processes.
This means that if you’re an SMB that happens to be part of the Partner Program, there is suddenly a real incentive to get stuck in with agent work if you haven’t already. This, of course, is not possible for every business, but Salesforce has made it clear that the businesses that can tap into creating solid enterprise AI solutions will be the ones that come out on top.
So, it is clear that Salesforce is both trying to make it easier for SMBs to get their hands on Agentforce and its suite of AI tools, and that it is incentivizing AI agent work for partners and customers. Does this mean that any SMB can become and thrive as an Agentforce customer this year?
Does This Mean Agentforce Is More Accessible Now?
The answer to that question is: it depends on who you ask. But, with SMBs now beginning to truly get stuck in with Agentforce, it’s becoming clearer as to how the experience varies from company to company.
Mariana Fili, the CEO and Founder of Palm Consulting, explained how she was currently supporting several clients in adopting Agentforce, and that it is a much more gradual process for the small businesses she works with.
“For small and mid-sized businesses, Agentforce implementation is only simple when the scope is clear,” she told SF Ben.
“When clients come in wanting to ‘use AI everywhere,’ things get messy fast. But when we anchor the implementation to one specific outcome, like improving lead response time or helping a small sales team move faster, it becomes very streamlined.”
She explained that one of the biggest challenges her clients faced was actually understanding what they were buying and what they could get from it, especially as pricing was often cited as confusing.
“Pricing is one of the main friction points,” she said. “At the beginning, there’s a real concern that costs could scale unexpectedly and eat into their budget. We spend a lot of time helping them define boundaries and use cases so they feel in control of that investment.”
However, once they understood what they could use Agentforce and tools like Prompt Builder for, nailing down viable use cases became much easier. Mariana explained that starting small and focusing down was key.
“One of the most valuable use cases we’re seeing is lead qualification and guided follow-up,” she said. “We’ve implemented prompts that analyze inbound leads and suggest the next best action for the sales rep. We’ve built prompts that generate quick summaries before client calls.”
“In both cases, the goal isn’t automation for the sake of it. It helps small teams operate with the level of structure and consistency you’d expect from a much larger organization.”
Vijay Kumar, a Salesforce Revenue and Performance Consultant, explained that if a client is able to understand where they think Agentforce can help them and their business, the implementation process will run much more smoothly.
“We can try and match their expectations with Agentforce,” he told SF Ben. “We usually provide a proof of concept (POC) on a small portion of their requirement, and based on that feedback, we will proceed to full scale.”
For Kumar, who has clients using Agentforce for the retail industry, a successful use case is one that provides a personalized service for their customers. An example is an Agentforce-powered AI assistant that he built for a client that recommends products based on a customer’s website search history and preferences – a fairly small but formidable solution.
How Has Salesforce Supported?
Having Salesforce’s support on any implementation – especially one in somewhat uncharted AI territory for an SMB – is always helpful. But has Salesforce been on hand for its smaller customers in the right way?
Mariana told me that Salesforce has definitely been putting in the work development-wise.
“Salesforce has been moving quickly to make these tools available and easier to adopt, especially with Prompt Builder,” she said. “However, most of the value doesn’t come from the tool itself, but from how it’s implemented. The platform gives you the capability, but it doesn’t define the strategy.”
She explained that in practice, clients still rely heavily on partners or internal experts to translate these features into something that actually impacts their business, which includes defining use cases, preparing the data, and more. Essentially, there is only so much Salesforce can do; providing the product is one part. Understanding how to implement it is another, and that largely falls on the consultancy.
Vijay said that he personally thought he didn’t receive that much support from Salesforce, but he was able to take inspiration from other industries’ and companies’ use cases to help out with the ones he was working on.
Final Thoughts
So, is it difficult for SMBs to become Agentforce customers this year? I think the realistic answer is that it is definitely much easier than it used to be, even six months ago.
Salesforce has both made it easier for SMBs to get started with Agentforce and, if an SMB is part of the partner program, incentivized providing AI-powered solutions to others.
There are still challenges to tackle, and as Salesforce continues to evolve its Agentforce offering with updates, new products, name changes, and potentially even further pricing tweaks, the landscape for SMBs could become a lot trickier to navigate. That’s why understanding exactly what your business can get from Agentforce is key before jumping into the deep end.
