The Short Version
Einstein Copilot was the 2024 name for Salesforce’s in-app AI assistant. Agentforce is the 2025–2026 platform it’s now part of. Copilot still exists — but as one agent within Agentforce, not as a separate product.
If you built on Copilot, your work didn’t vanish. But the architecture around it expanded, the pricing model changed, and you now have capabilities that weren’t possible in 2024.
What Stayed the Same
The core loop — user asks a question, an LLM plans actions, actions run against Salesforce data, a response is returned — is unchanged. Copilot actions you built still work. Prompt Builder templates still work. The Einstein Trust Layer still applies.
If you had a working Copilot deployment, the platform did not deprecate it.
What Actually Changed
Six differences matter for real deployments.
1. Multiple Agents, Not One
In Copilot-land, you configured the Copilot — a single in-app assistant with a list of actions. In Agentforce, you create multiple named agents, each with its own topics, scope, and channel. One internal agent for sales reps. One customer-facing agent on your help site. A third for field service technicians.
Migration implication: review your single Copilot action list and decide how to split it across agents. Actions that target different audiences probably belong to different agents.
2. Topics Replace “Flat” Action Lists
Copilot had one list of actions. Agentforce groups actions into topics. A topic is a bucket of related jobs with its own scope, instructions, and action subset.
Topics make agents more predictable because Atlas routes each user question to one topic before picking actions. Without topics, the model considered every action on every message — which is where most Copilot misrouting bugs came from.
Migration implication: cluster your Copilot actions into 3–5 topics based on the jobs they serve.
3. Multi-Channel
Copilot was internal-only. Agentforce supports internal (employee-facing), web (public-facing), messaging, voice (via Service Cloud Voice), and Slack channels. Each channel has its own UI surface, authentication model, and tuning knobs.
Migration implication: if you always wanted to expose your Copilot to customers, now you can — but don’t just flip a switch. Public-facing agents need stricter scopes and more rigorous testing.
4. The Atlas Reasoning Engine (2.0)
The reasoning behind the scenes got a major upgrade. Atlas now runs a multi-step plan-act-observe-revise loop, rather than a mostly single-shot classification. The practical result: agents handle ambiguous, multi-part, or chained questions much better than Copilot did.
Migration implication: prompts that had to be perfectly worded for Copilot to work now tolerate messier phrasing. Test your old scripts against the new agent — some workarounds you built may be unnecessary.
5. Pricing Model
Copilot was bundled into Einstein 1 licenses. Agentforce is priced by conversation — one interaction cycle — with tiered volume packs. Einstein request credits (consumed by reasoning steps) are a separate meter.
Migration implication: finance conversations are mandatory before expanding usage. The per-conversation model can look cheaper or more expensive than per-user depending on patterns. Run a two-week usage study before committing to volume.
6. Agent Builder Replaces Copilot Builder
The configuration UI is substantially different — not a rename. Agent Builder has a topic-first mental model, a preview/test surface on the right, and reasoning traces integrated into the same view. Copilot Builder knowledge does not fully transfer.
Migration implication: plan a half-day of learning for anyone who configured Copilot, even if they’re fluent in it.
What to Actually Migrate
If you have a working Copilot today, here’s the order.
Step 1: Inventory
List every Copilot action, every prompt template it calls, every permission set that grants access. Produce a spreadsheet. Do this before touching configuration.
Step 2: Cluster into Topics
Group the actions into 3–5 topics. For each topic, write a clear classification description. If you can’t describe the topic in one sentence, it’s too broad — split it.
Step 3: Create the New Agent
In Agent Builder, create an internal agent and attach the topics. Don’t skip the scope field — this is where you describe what the agent is allowed to do in prose.
Step 4: Attach Actions and Templates
Prompt templates transfer as-is. Actions transfer as-is. The difference is they now live under a topic instead of floating in a flat list.
Step 5: Rebuild the Test Set
Take the test prompts you used for Copilot and run them against the new agent. You will see different behavior — usually better. Update your regression set.
Step 6: Deprecate Copilot Access
Once the new agent is live and verified, remove the Copilot permission set from users. Leaving both running confuses users and doubles audit complexity.
Things That Surprised Teams Post-Migration
Reasoning is slower. Multi-step plans mean response latency went up. Users noticed. Set expectations.
Usage meters differently. A single Copilot question might have been one LLM call; the same question in Agentforce might be three or four. Budget accordingly.
Trust Layer masking caught more. The new masking rules are stricter by default. Review any responses that now contain placeholder tags and either loosen rules selectively or write prompts that cope.
Topics without scopes drift. Agents with empty scope fields inherit very permissive defaults. Always write a scope — one paragraph, constraining.
Do You Even Need to Migrate?
If your Copilot works and you’re on a legacy license that still supports it: there’s no hard deadline in every case, but new features ship to Agentforce only. Plan the migration for a low-traffic window this year rather than being forced into it later.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are my Copilot actions deprecated?
No. Actions carry forward. The framework around them changed.
Can I run Copilot and Agentforce in parallel?
Technically yes during migration. Long-term, no — the user experience is duplicated and confusing.
Is there a one-click migration tool?
Not as of the Spring ‘26 release. A partial migration assistant exists in Agent Builder but manual review is required for topics and scopes.
Will the Copilot name disappear?
It’s already receding. Expect documentation to fully consolidate on “Agentforce” within the next couple of releases.