As we approach Dreamforce 24, we know that typically means we also get to find out what’s coming in the next Salesforce major release. The Salesforce Winter 25 Release Notes have some exciting new features coming our way. In this article, we take a look at some of these new features, along with the key dates of when the release will be available.
What’s New in Salesforce Winter ‘25
There are a plethora of updates coming as part of the Salesforce Winter ‘25 release, and you can access the full Winter ’25 Release Notes for the details of the entire release. Below, we highlight some of the key features.
Einstein Copilot for Sales
The Salesforce Winter ’25 release introduces the powerful new feature, Einstein Copilot for Sales, designed to significantly enhance sales efficiency and effectiveness. This feature introduces Sales Copilot topics, which are strategically tailored to help sellers streamline deal closures, maintain proactive customer communications, and accurately forecast sales revenue. By organizing actions around key sales activities such as closing deals, managing deals, communicating with customers, and exploring conversations, Sales Copilot ensures that sellers can focus on the most relevant data and actions during their interactions.
A major highlight of this release is the introduction of four new topics within Sales Copilot. These topics—Close Deals, Manage Deals, Communicate with Customer, and Forecast Sales Revenue—provide clearer and more targeted copilot responses, enabling sellers to accomplish more with each conversation. Additionally, the feature offers enhanced convenience in setting up meeting requests. With AI-generated sales meeting requests, sellers can easily draft customized emails, complete with three possible meeting time slots and links for the customer to view available slots or access the sender’s calendar, boosting productivity and improving customer engagement.
Revenue Intelligence
The Salesforce Winter ’25 release introduces several key enhancements to Revenue Intelligence, empowering sales teams to discover new opportunities and improve performance with more precise and actionable insights. One of the standout features is the improved Einstein Account Management white space analysis, which now allows sellers to better understand how their white space evolves over time and how it compares to similar vendors. The white space analysis is organized by clusters and cohorts, providing a more granular view of account opportunities, with summaries sorted by time dimensions and product performance, enabling more strategic decision-making.
In addition, Salesforce has enhanced the ability to proactively manage account risks. Sales leaders and sellers can now send emails directly from within the Einstein Account Management app when risk thresholds are identified. This feature allows teams to address potential issues swiftly, such as when an account has multiple open cases or shows signs of low engagement, thereby improving customer retention and satisfaction.
For organizations that organize teams by territory, the Salesforce Winter ’25 release also introduces new controls for data access based on territory assignments. This enhancement enables businesses to manage access to dashboards and data more effectively by turning on a territory-based security predicate in Setup, providing a more secure and tailored data access structure aligned with the organization’s territory management.
Einstein Copilot for Sales represents a significant advancement in Salesforce’s AI-driven tools, ensuring that sales teams can operate with greater precision and efficiency, ultimately leading to improved sales outcomes and customer satisfaction.
Partner Relationship Management
The Salesforce Winter ’25 release introduces Partner Connect, a powerful new feature designed to enhance Partner Relationship Management by streamlining collaboration on shared deals. This tool enables vendors and partners to seamlessly work together on leads and opportunities within their own Salesforce orgs, eliminating the manual reconciliation of shared data. By connecting their orgs, vendor and partner admins can precisely control what information is automatically shared, fostering greater transparency and trust while ensuring data privacy where necessary. This innovation allows both parties to engage their sales teams more effectively, maximizing the potential of shared business opportunities.
Partner Connect addresses the challenges vendors and partners have historically faced in coordinating shared business across different Salesforce orgs. The lack of transparency and the manual effort required to keep data aligned often resulted in inefficiencies and missed opportunities. With Partner Connect, these hurdles are removed, allowing for real-time tracking of progress on shared deals. This feature not only saves time and reduces manual work but also enhances the overall partnership experience by enabling both companies to focus on driving business growth collaboratively, all within the familiar Salesforce environment.
Einstein Search
Updates to Einstein Search are aimed at helping users complete tasks directly from the search results, enabling faster working and increased efficiency. You’re able to configure search features with Search Manager and Search Settings.
Furthermore, a Query Limit has been applied to improve search performance. This limit restricts users to 5,000 search queries and 1.4 CPU hours within a 5-minute interval. Users exceeding these limits will be presented with an error message.
Salesforce Archive (Pilot)
Salesforce Archive (Pilot) is a powerful new tool designed to help businesses manage their growing data efficiently while optimizing performance and reducing costs. As your Salesforce org accumulates records over time, excess data can slow down processing times and inflate storage expenses. Salesforce Archive addresses these challenges by allowing you to archive expired or unused records in an external, low-cost data store, all while maintaining easy access to these records directly from your Salesforce environment. This native solution not only helps in boosting query and reporting performance but also ensures compliance with data retention regulations without the need for hard deletion.
Currently available as a pilot in select regions, Salesforce Archive offers businesses the ability to automate data cleanup through recurring archive jobs, thus reducing storage footprint and avoiding data redundancies. Once it becomes generally available, Salesforce Archive will be purchasable as an add-on license and can be used in both production and sandbox environments. This feature is ideal for businesses looking to preserve historical data for future reference and trend analysis while ensuring that their Salesforce environment remains agile and cost-effective. For more information on participating in the pilot or future availability, businesses are encouraged to contact their Salesforce account executive.
Get Ready for Salesforce Winter ‘25
As we gear up for Salesforce’s Winter ’25 Release, it’s crucial for admins to stay ahead of the curve by marking a few key dates on their calendars. Starting on August 8, you can get an early preview of the new features by signing up for a Pre-Release org. This environment allows you to explore and familiarize yourself with the Winter ’25 functionalities before they go live. Following that, on August 14, the official Release Notes will be available, offering a comprehensive guide to all the updates and new features. It’s an excellent opportunity to dive into the details and understand how these changes will impact your Salesforce environment.
By August 19, Salesforce will begin rolling out a series of blog posts tailored to help admins maximize the new features. These posts will provide insights into user access highlights and other essential updates. Make sure to regularly check the Be Release Ready page, where all the resources and information you need will be continuously updated.
Finally, don’t forget to refresh your sandbox by August 29 to ensure you’re testing the new features in an environment that mirrors your current setup. The Sandbox Preview, starting on August 30, allows you to see how Winter ’25 will work with your customizations without impacting your live instance. This is your chance to fine-tune and prepare for the full release, ensuring a smooth transition when the update rolls out officially.
Salesforce Winter ’25 Arrives
Depending on your Salesforce instance (e.g. NA__, EMEA__, etc.), you will get the Winter ’25 features on September 6, October 4 or October 12. You can check the Salesforce Maintenance Calendar to identify when your Salesforce Org will receive the Salesforce Winter ’25 Release.
