The Agentforce On-by-Default Checklist

If Einstein's generative AI is turned on in your org, admins can open Agentforce Builder right away. Anyone else needs one permission, called Manage AI Agents. It can sit on a profile or on a permission set, so check both.

An agent that serves customers runs as its own agent user, a Salesforce user set up for that agent. An agent that helps your team runs as the person using it. Either way, it can reach what that user can reach. Permissions in most companies built up over time: one admin on Salesforce's own channel described eleven people with seven different permission setups.

The fields that matter most are the ones strangers fill in. A Web-to-Lead form is the form on your website that writes straight into Salesforce as a new lead. In SalesBleed, Zenity Labs typed hidden instructions into one. An agent asked to review the leads read them as instructions and sent account data out. It needed no extra access.

For each agent, answer three questions:

Salesforce says turning the platform on costs nothing and doesn't change billing. Using it is different. Agent use is paid in Flex Credits, priced per action. In Salesforce's published pricing from 2025, each action costs $0.10, and an exchange that needs no action has no charge. Your contract may differ. The shape is what matters: a free switch, then a meter that runs every time an agent presses a button.

With the Agentforce toggle gone, partners point to the Einstein setting on the Einstein Setup page (Setup, then Einstein Setup). Turn it off and the Agentforce platform goes off. But it also runs Einstein's other generative AI features, and Salesforce hasn't published the full list.

Pick the lever that fits the problem:

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