Marketing Cloud Next: The New Era of AI-Powered Marketing

Salesforce is ushering in a new era in the marketing world with Marketing Cloud Next, introduced at the 2025 Connections event. This next-generation platform not only integrates artificial intelligence into marketing processes, but also redefines marketing through autonomous agents that can make decisions, design campaigns, and take actions based on performance.

However, in recent years, rapidly changing product names, new release launches, and rebranding strategies have made it harder to grasp the full scope of this transformation. In this article, we take a comprehensive look at the current product structures under the Marketing Cloud umbrella, how these products are integrated, what the Agentic Marketing approach means, and Salesforce’s marketing vision for the future.

Overview of the Marketing Cloud Ecosystem

Salesforce’s marketing product portfolio has evolved over the years into five main categories:

• Marketing Cloud Engagement (MCE): Formerly known as ExactTarget, this is the backbone of B2C marketing, known for its multi-channel communication, automation, and segmentation capabilities.

• Marketing Cloud Account Engagement (MCAE): Previously known as Pardot, this product is designed for B2B marketing with its integration into Salesforce CRM objects.

• Marketing Cloud Growth (MCG): Launched in 2024, it is the first marketing product built on Salesforce’s new data-centric infrastructure.

• Marketing Cloud Advanced (MCA): An advanced version of Growth, offering features such as A/B testing, SMS, and advanced engagement frequency controls.

• Marketing Cloud Next (MCN): A new-generation platform emerging from the convergence of all these products. Built on Data Cloud, it is powered by Agentforce agents.

3.Core Strategic Innovations of Marketing Cloud Next

Simplified Integration for B2B and B2C:
What were once complex integration processes have been streamlined. Both B2B and B2C marketing activities can now be managed from a single application — saving time and increasing operational efficiency.

Autonomous Marketing Flows with Agentforce:
Agentforce represents the AI agents integrated within Marketing Cloud Next. These intelligent agents, powered by Data Cloud’s real-time data infrastructure, automate end-to-end processes such as campaign creation, segmentation, content personalization, and multi-channel journey management. They make real-time decisions at every step to optimize marketing operations and boost team productivity.

Unified Data Cloud Foundation:
MCN is built on Salesforce’s central data platform, Data Cloud. This allows marketing, sales, service, and commerce teams to access the same real-time data and use a unified personalization engine to deliver consistent customer experiences.

An Evolving Structure: The Convergence Towards the Core Platform

Salesforce describes this transformation not as a “migration” but as a convergence. The goal is to gradually and flexibly unify existing systems onto the Core Platform.

Migration Paths for Users:

• Marketing Cloud Account Engagement: Formerly Pardot, used for B2B marketing automation. MCAE users can transition to the new-generation MCG or MCA solutions.

• Marketing Cloud Engagement: The traditional B2C marketing automation solution, managing multi-channel campaigns such as email, SMS, and mobile push. The enhanced version, MCE+, is expected to be generally available in October 2025.

• Marketing Cloud Growth: Optimized for SMBs and simplified needs.

• Marketing Cloud Advanced: Designed for greater customization and large-scale enterprise requirements.

• Marketing Cloud Engagement Plus: A modernized version of MCE, compatible with the new infrastructure.

Flexible Integration:
Existing segments, automations, and campaign infrastructures can be integrated into the new Marketing Cloud Next platform.

This flexibility ensures that companies’ current marketing investments are preserved, eliminating the need to start from scratch. However, especially for large-scale enterprise applications like MCE, the transition process will take time. Direct migration is generally not feasible and requires a phased, strategic transformation.

A New Approach: What is Agentic Marketing?

At the heart of the transformation driven by Marketing Cloud Next lies Agentic Marketing. This approach positions AI not merely as an automation engine but as "intelligent representatives" that can make decisions, take actions, and directly contribute to marketing processes.

These agents handle campaign creation, content design, targeting, journey management, personalization, and optimization — allowing marketers to focus more on strategy, creativity, and brand management.

Steve Hammond, EVP of Salesforce Marketing Cloud, describes this transformation as follows:

"With Marketing Cloud Next, we’re delivering not just AI features but a full agentic marketing solution. Agentforce transforms how work gets done; it doesn’t replace marketers — it empowers them."

This vision enables not only greater efficiency but also more targeted, consistent, and impactful customer experiences across the organization.

The New Face of the Platform: Meet Agentforce Capabilities

A New Era in Campaign Creation:
With Agentforce Campaign Creation, the entire process — from creating campaign briefs to content production, segmentation, and journey design — is powered by AI. This can even be initiated through platforms like Slack. Moreover, unstructured data from sources such as Google Drive, SharePoint, and Zendesk can be directly used in campaign production.

Real-Time Personalization:
With Agentforce Personalization Decisioning, web content can be dynamically adjusted based on visitor behavior and emotional signals. Salesforce’s advanced RAG engine enables the creation of more contextual and impactful content.

Dynamic Content Management with Web Curation:
Website content, visuals, and messages can be updated in real time based on user interactions, helping to keep users engaged without diverting them to other sources.

Lead Management and Qualification:
Agentforce Lead Management builds a stronger bridge between marketing and sales teams. The agents evaluate leads, set email configurations, and limit contact frequency. The Guided Agent Setup feature will be generally available in July 2025.

Data-Driven Actions with Segment Intelligence:
Agentforce Segment Intelligence analyzes campaign performance and provides recommendations for underperforming segments. Upon approval, these segments can be rapidly integrated into the system.

Marketing Cloud Next reflects Salesforce’s long-standing vision. With advantages like unified customer visibility, AI-powered agents, data-driven personalization, and low integration costs, it offers organizations not just a marketing tool, but a holistic platform that enhances collaboration, productivity, and strategic decision-making. With Marketing Cloud Next, marketing evolves beyond campaign management into a data-driven, AI-powered, and customer-centric strategy.