Salesforce Now Giving Broad New Platform Creation Options to Its Partners

Salesforce partners can now build, white-label, and commercially distribute custom applications and AI agents to customers using Salesforce platforms under a series of expanded partner ecosystem options being offered for the first time.

In the past, partners were not able to access such capabilities, which were reserved and available only to Salesforce customers, according to the company.

Under the expansion, Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) can now use a wide range of Salesforce platforms as the foundations for their own custom AI agents and applications, the company announced. Those platforms include Agentforce 360, Agentforce Marketing, Agentforce Financial Services, Agentforce Automotive, Trusted Services, Salesforce Foundations, and Data 360.

Previously, partners that wanted to provide such custom services to their customers had to build or source them entirely on their own, according to Salesforce.

The removal of these impediments by Salesforce comes as the company opens the needed commercial and operational foundations that will allow partners to produce these custom products for their customers.

The new partner ecosystem updates also include flexible pricing with options for seat-based, usage-based, or consumption-based pricing using Flex Credits, and the opportunity to sell through an integrated marketplace that features automated operations.

Other updates include the ability for partners to use Salesforce’s AppExchange with upcoming auto-provisioning and billing services. The AppExchange can also be used to generate private offers, automate order creation, and streamline order-to-cash with the new Salesforce Partner Marketplace app, according to the company.

Automated monthly usage statements and real-time App Analytics data will also be available to partners under the expanded partner program, providing deeper visibility into how customers use their products.

A Salesforce spokesperson was not available to comment on the changes.

‘A Fundamental Architectural Shift’ for Salesforce, Says Analyst

“This is not just a product update - it is a fundamental architectural shift,” Shelly Kramer, founder and principal analyst with Kramer&Co., told ChannelE2E.

“By opening Agentforce 360, Salesforce is democratizing the core AI infrastructure, allowing its massive partner ecosystem to focus entirely on specialized business logic and accelerating the building and delivery of niche, trusted AI agents to the market.”

For Salesforce partners, this huge shift will now let them use the same AI-native foundation that powers Salesforce’s own products, including Agentforce 360, Data 360, Trusted Services, and industry-specific clouds, said Kramer.

“From a customer and partner perspective, Salesforce has effectively solved the AI ‘plumbing’ problem for its ISVs, who can now skip building the foundational security and data layers and build their businesses on top of Agentforce, putting their effort into developing specialized AI intelligence,” she said. “This should speed the path to innovation, and customers should see an explosion of highly relevant, industry-specific agents, all running on a unified, trusted platform.”

In the big picture, Salesforce is addressing what Kramer calls the “moat issue.”

“In the battle for AI dominance, the real moat is the ecosystem,” she said. “In an age where AI models are quickly becoming commodities, the true competitive moat is not the LLM; it is the ecosystem of apps and data that surround it. I see this as a forward-looking move by Salesforce to ensure that while the LLM tech may well commoditize, the Agentforce platform will remain the secure, preferred OS for the next generation of specialized AI agents. In short, this move to ensure its platform remains the OS for the agentic enterprise is intentional, delivering Salesforce a significant advantage, exactly as intended.”