Salesforce has confirmed that its Einstein Copilot is no more.
While the CRM leader had previously let slip that the conversational AI assistant was being retired in January 2025, it has still taken many users by surprise.
In a post on LinkedIn, Ashish Agarwal, a Salesforce Architect, Consultant, and Trainer, drew attention to the change.
While working on a Salesforce project, Agarwal noticed that the feature – formerly known as Einstein Copilot – has been renamed to “Agentforce (Default).”
In detailing why the vendor had decided to make the change, Salesforce said in its release notes that it was choosing to include it as one of its Agentforce agents.
The tech firm confirmed that there would be no changes to functionality, but there had been updates and minor refinements to Permissions, UI elements, and Help documentation.
“In Setup, you’ll see Agentforce or Agentforce (Default) for the agent name and type. This change won’t impact your implementations,” the company stated.
Your agent is still available to help your Salesforce users with everyday business interactions, embedded right in the flow of work.
Having only been made generally available in April of last year, Einstein Copilot was Salesforce’s premier generative AI (GenAI) solution.
The conversational assistant integrates into Salesforce applications, enabling employees to perform workflows and ask questions using natural language.
Built on the Einstein 1 Platform, it also benefits from Salesforce’s Data Cloud and supports Salesforce metadata.
But with the latest update, it appears that the tool is now just another agent.
Distancing Itself from Copilots
While Salesforce’s official line is that the change is part of its wider push to focus more heavily on its Agentforce offerings, the move could also be linked to CEO Marc Benioff’s repeated criticisms of Microsoft’s Copilot.
Over the past four months, the Salesforce man has taken a number of shots at Microsoft’s AI assistant, claiming that “so many customers” were “disappointed” with their Copilot purchases, labeling it as “just repackaged ChatGPT,” and even comparing the tool to “Clippy 2.0”, referencing Microsoft’s often-ridiculed virtual assistant from the 1990s.
Of course, is not a coincidence that Benioff’s coordinated attack on one of its biggest rivals occurred at the same as the launch of Salesforce’s Agentforce.
With this in mind, the company’s decision to repackage Einstein Copilot as part of Agentforce could be seen as a ploy to intentionally distance itself from the Copilot label.
There could also be a more practical reason, which was outlined by Agarwal in his LinkedIn post:
In today’s Agentic world, you don’t need a Copilot to assist you (while you play the pilot). Nope, Agents are taking the controls themselves. They can now pilot the plane, handle turbulence, and even serve the in-flight snacks—all while you sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride.
Agarwal’s theory chimes with Salesforce’s ‘Four Waves of AI’ model.
In a recent talk about Agentforce, Benioff discussed how the company views copilots as the second wave of AI, which has now been left behind in favor of wave three: AI agents.
Despite the apparent desire of Salesforce to move away from the copilot label, some people did express reservations about the change.
In response to Agarwal’s post, Richard Clark, Vice President of EMEA Alliances and Success at Elements.cloud, expressed his surprise at the move because Einstein Copilot has been the internal user agent, which behaves differently from the others.
Even Agarwal questioned the use of ‘Agentforce’ as the default name for the agent, writing:
“In my opinion, ‘Agentforce’ represents the entire AI platform, which includes components like the Prompt Builder, agents, the Einstein Trust Layer, and more.
Naming just one of the agents as “Agentforce” might create unnecessary confusion.
More Agentforce News
Despite having only gone live with Agentforce in October of last year, Salesforce has already introduced Agentforce 2.0, branding it as “The Digital Labor Platform.”
Agentforce 2.0 enables users to create and deploy AI agents for autonomous task execution.
The update also includes an expanded vision, new capabilities, and key advancements.
Elsewhere, Salesforce recently launched Agentforce for Retail, an industry-specific AI skills library.
The tool allows retailers to create AI agents tailored to their needs, supporting customer service, store associates, and customers.
These agents can streamline tasks like order management, guided shopping, and appointment scheduling.