Salesforce Winter '27 for Service Teams: Agentforce On by Default, Knowledge Blocks and Case Merge

Agentforce Platform switches on by default for existing orgs on a rolling basis from the first week of September 2026, with no billing change per Salesforce. The useful no-AI-licence items for support teams are Knowledge Blocks and case milestone deletion. Case merge setup is revamped, but the enhanced versions are Beta, and two Beta features are retired in September.

This is for a support team of 3 to 30 people on the licences it already holds. Everything is from the Winter '27 release notes, still in preview as at 8 September 2026, so re-check a Where line before you budget. Previous instalment: Summer '26 for service. Release updates: what breaks and how to fix it.

Did Service Cloud get renamed?

Not in the release notes. The Winter '27 Service section is titled "Service" and uses both names, with a heading "AI Agents for Service Cloud" whose sub-line says "Agentforce Service". Only salesforce.com/service says "Agentforce Service (formerly Service Cloud)".

The notes do confirm three renames: "Partner Contact Center (formerly Salesforce Voice with Telephony Providers and Service Cloud Voice)", "Salesforce Voice (Native Telephony) is now part of Agentforce Contact Center" (both on the Contact Center landing), and "Enhanced Chat (formerly Messaging for In-App and Web)". Below, Service Cloud means the licence you hold.

What can you use without an Agentforce licence?

Editions are quoted from each feature's Where line.

Feature	Editions per the Where line	Add-on?	Status
Knowledge Blocks	Professional, Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, Developer	Salesforce Knowledge add-on; no AI licence	GA
Delete outdated case milestones	Professional, Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, Developer	None	GA
Original case attachments inline	Not on the landing summary; check the feature page	None stated	GA
Revamped Case Merge setup	Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, Developer	None stated	Page GA; Enhanced Case Merge and Case Merge for Omni-Channel are Beta
Chat reroute notice	"Enhanced messaging and Enhanced Chat. View required editions."	Messaging channel	GA
Accept-to-first-response metric	Enhanced Messaging and Enhanced Chat; editions not listed	Messaging channel	GA
Filtered transfer list in the Omni-Channel widget	Salesforce Voice (Native Telephony) orgs	Native Telephony	GA

Knowledge Blocks first. Write a block once (a disclaimer, a returns address), insert it anywhere, and "When you publish a new version of a block, every article using it reflects the change automatically." Do now: Setup, Enhanced Knowledge Settings, turn on Knowledge Blocks, then convert the snippets your authors paste most.

Case milestone deletion: "Previously, milestone records accumulated indefinitely on cases, with no supported way to delete them." Data Loader or Apex can now; test in a sandbox first.

Case Merge gets one Setup page for Case Merge, Enhanced Case Merge (Beta) and Case Merge for Omni-Channel (Beta): keep or delete duplicates after a merge and the default status for merged duplicates. The page is GA; treat the two Beta options as sandbox-only.

Which AI features need an add-on?

Add-ons are named as the Where line names them.

• Refine Case Comments with AI writing tools: Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited and Developer "with Agentforce for Service and Einstein for Service enabled"; users need the Prompt Template User permission set.
• Einstein Knowledge Creation from any record: the Where line names Professional and up with the Salesforce Knowledge add-on, but setup requires Einstein Knowledge Creation and Prompt Builder, so generative AI licensing applies in practice.
• Knowledge Similarity: Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited and Developer with the Knowledge add-on, connected to an Agentforce Data Library; authors see a percentage similarity score.
• Service Replies for Email grounded in Enterprise Knowledge: Enterprise and Unlimited "with the Agentforce for Service add-on or Agentforce 1 Edition"; replies can draw on SharePoint, Confluence, wikis and PDFs, each with a citation link.
• WhatsApp voice messages to an Agentforce agent: Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited and Developer "with Foundations or Agentforce 1 editions", from the week of 31 August 2026.
• Work Summaries and Enhanced Summaries: Work Summaries now auto-generate after Voice calls and Enhanced Messaging sessions. The retirement note names Enterprise and Unlimited "with the Einstein for Service add-on or Einstein 1 Edition"; check each feature page's Where line.

What does Agentforce Platform Enabled by Default mean for you?

The release note applies to Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited and Developer Editions "with Foundations or Agentforce 1 Editions". New orgs have it on; for existing orgs, "We'll begin enabling the Agentforce platform for existing orgs on a rolling basis starting the first week of September." On cost: "The platform is enabled at no additional cost and there are no changes to billing." Removing the setting is "planned for later in Winter '27".

That is a separate clock from your upgrade: Australian-hosted production instances take Winter '27 on Saturday 10 October UTC (early Sunday 11 October in New Zealand) per Salesforce Trust and our July post, but enablement can arrive earlier. The dependency is Einstein: "Agentforce requires Einstein generative AI to be enabled in your org." If it is on, admins get Agentforce Builder at once; other users need the Manage AI Agents permission.

Do now:

1. Setup, Einstein Setup: is Einstein generative AI on? That decides whether Builder appears.
2. List who holds Manage AI Agents and decide who may build agents.
3. Check the Help Agent behind the ? icon: rolling out in Free Suite, Starter Suite, Pro Suite, Professional and Enterprise (Enterprise from August 2026, English only, no setup) and permission-aware. Performance and Unlimited are not in that Where line.
4. Review your privacy settings before an agent reads case data. For New Zealand organisations, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner's AI guidance (September 2023) expects agencies to "Conduct a privacy impact assessment before using these tools" and to ensure "human review prior to acting on AI outputs".

What is new in Agentforce Builder?

Each applies to Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited and Developer with Foundations or Agentforce 1 and carries no Beta label, unless noted; the first three arrive the week of 7 September 2026.

• Compare and merge agent versions in Canvas and Script view, accepting or declining changes individually or all at once.
• Connection instructions: per-connection rules and response formats for Messaging, Service Email and Marketing Email.
• Dynamic messaging components: response formats built from the enhanced link, question, time selector and form components; Where line on the feature page only.
• Simplified agent metadata: AiAgentDefinition and AiAgentDefinitionVersion replace AiAuthoringBundle, Bot and BotVersion; both orgs on API 68.0, managed 2GP only; the old types still work at API 67.0.
• Models: Gemini 3.6 Flash is GA "with a rate limit of 1,000 requests per minute"; Gemini 2.5 Pro, Flash and Flash-Lite are rerouted on 20 October 2026 to Gemini 3.5 Flash and 3.5 Flash-Lite.
• Standard actions: the Experience Builder Agent (Beta) "is no longer available to create agents"; a new Approval Agent arrives with three subagents.

No Winter '27 note covers Agent Script, agent testing or Data Libraries.

What about self-service and Help Agent?

Site features apply to Aura and LWR Experience Cloud sites in Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited and Developer.

• The Agentic Portal wizard starts from the Agentic Portal card on the Salesforce Go page and covers the site, a Customer Service Portal agent or Help agent, Enhanced Chat, a Knowledge page and deploy.
• Enhanced Chat deploys automatically in that setup: "No separate configuration of Messaging Channels or Embedded Service Deployments is required."
• The guided troubleshooting action is a Pilot, "available to orgs enrolled in the guided troubleshooting pilot".
• Set up a Help Agent in one guided workflow uses the service-helpagent-coordinate skill, in the Salesforce Skills repository since 31 July 2026, which runs "in supported AI coding environments". Pricing is in our pay-per-resolution post.

What is retiring or changing?

Item	What happens	Date per the notes
Work Summaries for Case (Beta)	Retires; maintenance mode until then	30 September 2026
Experience Builder Agent (Beta)	Discontinued	September 2026
Meta Embedded Signup v2 and v3 (WhatsApp)	Deprecated by Meta; Salesforce supports v4	1 October 2026
Gemini 2.5 Pro, Flash and Flash-Lite	Rerouted to Gemini 3.5 Flash and Flash-Lite	20 October 2026
Agentforce Voice phone-number limit	Enforced; "10 phone numbers" in sandbox and trial orgs (Native Telephony with Agentforce Contact Center add-ons)	Week of 7 September 2026

Do now: move any Case summaries to Enhanced Summaries before 30 September, and re-test prompt templates pinned to a Gemini 2.5 model before 20 October.

What does Agentforce cost now?

Enabled by default does not change your invoice. As at 8 September 2026, salesforce.com/agentforce/pricing lists, in USD: Salesforce Foundations "$0"; Flex Credits "$500 USD/Per 100k Credits"; Conversations "$2 USD/Per conversation"; Agentforce add-ons "$125 user / month"; Agentforce 1 Editions "from $550 user / month". Flex Credits and Conversations are not supported in the same org, and unused Flex Credits do not roll over. More in Agentforce for small business: cost and capabilities.

How SAASKOOL can help

This is a day's checkable work: a Where-line audit against your licences, the Einstein and Manage AI Agents check, Knowledge Blocks and milestone cleanup in a sandbox, and a retirement list with owners. Our Service Cloud engagements cover exactly that; our Agentforce and AI services take on the agent build.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Agentforce Platform Enabled by Default cost anything? No. The Winter '27 release note says the platform is enabled at no additional cost and there are no changes to billing. It applies to Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited and Developer Editions with Foundations or Agentforce 1 Editions; existing orgs are enabled on a rolling basis from the first week of September 2026. What you can build still depends on your licences and credits.

Do I need an Agentforce licence to use Knowledge Blocks? No. The Where line names Professional, Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited and Developer editions with the Salesforce Knowledge add-on and no Einstein or Agentforce requirement. Turn it on under Enhanced Knowledge Settings, write a block once, and every article using it updates when you publish a new version. Knowledge Similarity and Einstein Knowledge Creation need generative AI in practice.

Is the new Case Merge in Winter '27 generally available? Partly. The revamped Setup page that consolidates Case Merge settings carries no Beta label and applies to Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited and Developer editions. Enhanced Case Merge and Case Merge for Omni-Channel are both marked Beta on that page, so test them in a sandbox and do not build reporting on them until the label comes off.

What Service Cloud features are retiring in Winter '27? Work Summaries for Case (Beta) retires on 30 September 2026; move to Enhanced Summaries. Experience Builder Agent (Beta) is discontinued as of September 2026. Meta deprecates Embedded Signup v2 and v3 for WhatsApp on 1 October 2026, with Salesforce supporting v4. Gemini 2.5 requests are rerouted to Gemini 3.5 models on 20 October 2026.

Has Service Cloud been renamed to Agentforce Service? On salesforce.com, yes: the product page says Agentforce Service, formerly Service Cloud. In the Winter '27 release notes, no: the section is titled Service and uses both names. Confirmed renames: Partner Contact Center (formerly Salesforce Voice with Telephony Providers and Service Cloud Voice), Salesforce Voice (Native Telephony) into Agentforce Contact Center, and Enhanced Chat (formerly Messaging for In-App and Web).

---

SAASKOOL does Service Cloud and Agentforce work for support teams, with the permissions and privacy review done before the build. The health check is free.