If you’ve been in the Salesforce ecosystem for a while, you know the drill. A big event happens, and with it comes a flurry of announcements, rebranding, and the occasional product name change that sends us all scrambling to update our glossaries. It’s the circle of life, Salesforce-style. 

 

But after attending last week’s Connections event (CNX25), I can confidently say—this time feels different. The buzz wasn’t just about a new feature; it was about an entirely new vision: Agentic Marketing.

 

Meet Marketing Cloud Next—the newly unveiled suite that took center stage and is poised to redefine the next generation of Salesforce’s martech. Powered by autonomous AI agents, it’s designed to transform how work gets done and how brands connect and engage with customers in the era of AI.

 

So, what is it, and why should we care? Let’s break it down. 

 

 

The End of The “No-Reply” Era, The Beginning of “Next” 

 

This major shift represents the end of an era for Salesforce’s marketing products as we’ve known them. To really get what “Next” means, we have to look back at how this whole story started. 

 

Salesforce frames this not as a sudden change, but as the destination of a journey that began way back in 2013. That year, they acquired ExactTarget—the platform we came to know first as Marketing Cloud and now as Marketing Cloud Engagement—and Pardot, which now answers to the name Marketing Cloud Account Engagement. (Yes, it’s a good idea to keep a flowchart handy for the names).

 

For over a decade, these B2C and B2B titans evolved on separate tracks. Marketing Cloud Next represents the long-promised unification: bringing the best of both worlds onto the core Salesforce platform, built on a single foundation of Data Cloud and supercharged with AI Agents. It’s the end of the siloed approach and the start of a single, cohesive marketing engine. 

 

 

 

 
This unified platform began its life as “Marketing Cloud on Core,” launching with two initial tiers: Growth and Advanced. Now officially branded as Marketing Cloud Next, it incorporates the recent powerhouse additions of Personalization (announced at Dreamforce ’24) and Marketing Cloud Intelligence (announced at Connections ’25). This isn’t just a name change; it’s the full realization of that unified vision, bringing together data, intelligence, and execution into a single suite. 

 

Perhaps the most ambitious promise of this new vision is the end of the “no-reply” era. With AI agents as copilots, the goal is for every mass communication to become the start of a one-to-one conversation, allowing brands to respond and interact on a scale that feels like something out of a movie. As Doc Brown might say, “Where we’re going, we don’t need ‘no-reply’ addresses.” 

 

 

 

 

What’s the Difference? Growth vs. Advanced 

 

So, with all these new names flying around—Next, Growth, Advanced—it’s easy to scratch our heads and wonder how it all fits together. Let’s break it down simply: both Growth and Advanced are the two available tiers within the new Marketing Cloud Next suite. 

 

According to Salesforce, Marketing Cloud Growth and Advanced Editions are actually the same product. The key difference is that Advanced is a higher tier that includes all the functionality of Growth, plus additional features, credits (email, AI, Data Cloud), and flows. A customer can seamlessly upgrade from Growth to Advanced. 

 

The Growth Edition provides a powerful baseline with generative AI for campaign creation, journey automation with Flow, lead capture, and robust reporting. The Advanced Edition builds on that with more sophisticated AI for engagement, advanced testing, and conversational tools.

 

Here’s a breakdown of the key features: 

 

 

Feature	MC Growth Edition	MC Advanced Edition
Generative AI (Agentforce)	✅	✅
Salesforce Flow for Journeys	✅	✅
Email, SMS, WhatsApp Messaging	✅	✅
Forms & Landing Pages	✅	✅
Einstein Send Time Optimization	✅	✅
People & Account Scoring (Rule-Based)	✅	✅
Path Experiment (A/B Testing in Journeys)	❌	✅
Einstein Engagement Scoring & Frequency	❌	✅
Unified Conversations (SMS & WhatsApp)	❌	✅

 

 

 

At a Glance: Marketing Cloud Next vs. Engagement 

 

To put things in perspective, here’s a simplified features comparison to help you easily spot the differences between the two consoles. One key distinction is that Marketing Cloud Next currently lacks Dedicated IPs and Sender Authentication—features essential for high-volume sending, domain/IP reputation, and ESP verification.

 

As a result, Marketing Cloud Engagement (MCE) will continue operating with its current feature set. Its sunset isn’t expected anytime soon, especially since Marketing Cloud Next is still not an enterprise-ready solution.

 

 

Feature / Capability	MC Engagement (The Classic)	MC Next (Growth & Advanced)
Core Channels (Email, SMS, Push)	✅	✅
Unified on Salesforce Platform	❌	✅
Data Cloud Native	❌ (Connector)	✅
Advanced Analytics (Intelligence)	❌ (Add-on)	✅
Developer Tools (AMPScript, SSJS)	✅	❌
Dedicated IPs & Sender Auth	✅	❌
Business Units	✅	❌

 

 

The Elephant in the Room: Is Engagement Done For? 

 

Let’s be clear: Salesforce has not officially said that Marketing Cloud Next will replace Engagement. And for good reason. As you can see from the table, Next is currently missing key features that power users and developers rely on, like dedicated IPs, Business Units for governance, and—most critically—scripting capabilities like AMPScript. Engagement is a mature, robust platform. Next is the new kid on the block. 

 

 

However, Salesforce has confirmed a roadmap exists to incorporate these features into Next over time. 

 

 

In fact, to reinforce the idea that both platforms will coexist, Salesforce announced for the upcoming October ’25 release that users will be able to invoke Engagement journeys directly from Next flows. This is a clear signal that the transition will be gradual and that, at least for a while, we will operate in a hybrid model. 

 

So, What’s The Takeaway?

 

Reading between the lines, the message from Salesforce at Connections was loud and clear. We’re in the endgame now. While Engagement will remain a powerful and necessary tool for many clients today, all the innovation and energy is being poured into Next. It’s not a direct replacement tomorrow, but the final battle for the future of marketing on Salesforce has begun, and it’s clear which side is destined to win. Our job is to understand this shift, prepare for it, and start guiding our clients toward what’s coming next. 

 

The future of Marketing Cloud is Agentic, intelligent, unified, and data-driven.

And it’s called Next. 

 

 

 

Have a marketing challenge that keeps you up at night?

There’s an Agent for that! And we can build it for you! Let’s talk.

 

You might also be interested in our custom Agent for Marketing Cloud Engagement, designed to speed up campaign creation, boost team efficiency, and streamline your daily marketing operations.

Curious how it works? Check out VP Pablo Salazar’s article for a deep dive.

Want to see it in action? Contact us for a live demo and free consultation.