Getting Ready for Dreamforce (and Everything Else)

Dreamforce is just around the corner, and the excitement is building. This year's event will highlight Winter '26 release updates for Marketing Cloud Next and Data Cloud, so get ready for some cool demos and roadmap reveals. Agentforce and Agentic Marketing will be the main focus, and you can expect more Agentforce content in the coming months.

This past month has brought some security incidents that caught everyone's attention. It seems Salesforce became a target for hackers, with most incidents stemming from phishing attempts and some platform-related issues. While these attacks didn't directly impact the tools marketers use daily, it's a good opportunity to review our security practices.

Start by auditing your installed packages to see if you're still using them, GitHub repositories for any shared credentials, review your admin settings, and check for users who should be deactivated. You'd be surprised how often I've seen vendors still listed as admins who haven't logged in for six months.

As marketers increasingly use IDEs(Integrated Development Environment) like VS Code or Cursor, checking for compromised packages is becoming more critical. Consider this a friendly reminder to spend 15 minutes next week going through your security settings.

Another development worth noting is how Apple and Android are integrating AI by default. With 46% of all email opens occurring on mobile devices, this AI integration could significantly impact your campaigns.

The latest iOS and Android updates have introduced changes that are reshaping how subscribers interact with messages across email, SMS, and mobile app channels. AI-generated summaries are now the default in Apple's Mail app, and other systems will follow suit soon. So it's time to rethink your email and SMS marketing strategy for the AI era. For a detailed breakdown of these changes and actionable steps to adapt your strategy, read the full article: "New Rules of Engagement: A Marketer's Guide to iOS26 and Android 16 Changes".

The new Data Cloud Segment Preview feature solves a common marketer frustration: not being able to see who's actually in your segment before you publish it. Previously, you had to rely on segment counts and hope for the best.

This preview functionality lets you peek inside your segments before they go live, showing you exactly which subscribers will be included. You can review the data, check if your key customers are there, and tweak your targeting rules until you're confident you're reaching the right people.

No more guessing games – you'll see exactly who's in your segment before you publish.

• New Trailhead content for Marketing Cloud Next. This trail covers Agentforce Marketing and signals more learning paths are coming: "Meet Agentforce Marketing".
• We've all been there - accidentally pausing automations and forgetting about them. Nils shares a practical solution: "Never Forget a Paused Automation in SFMC Again".
• For Figma enthusiasts: Dylan Field shows how to streamline your design-to-product workflow with Sonnet 4.5: "Figma Make Demo by Dylan Field".
• Ever wondered why so many AI-generated websites look the same? This explains the purple website phenomenon: "AI has a Purple Problem".