Top New Features in Spring ’26 Release: [Service Cloud in Lightning]

Introduction

Spring ’26 introduces a strong wave of enhancements to Service Cloud in Lightning, focused on making customer support faster, smarter, and more contextual. From AI-driven troubleshooting and role-based case insights to improved SLA tracking and multilingual email support, these updates are designed to reduce manual effort while improving service quality at scale.

In this article, we highlight the most impactful Service Cloud features in the Spring ’26 release. You’ll see how Salesforce is enabling proactive service, richer case context, better self-service experiences, and more efficient admin and agent workflows. Each feature is built to help service teams respond faster, work more consistently, and deliver better customer outcomes.

Explore how Spring ’26 is shaping Service Cloud into a more intelligent, agent-friendly, and customer-centric support platform.

1. Guide Your Users Through Interactive Troubleshooting for Proactive Scenarios

Help service reps proactively resolve customer issues by generating AI-driven troubleshooting plans when no automation exists. Service reps define a scenario prompt during campaign planning, and Agentforce Service agent uses it to guide customers through a tailored troubleshooting session after they open an outreach. This approach broadens coverage of proactive issues, accelerates resolution, and captures conversation traces to improve future troubleshooting plans.

Where: This change applies to Aura or LWR sites accessed through Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic in Enterprise, Professional, Unlimited, and Developer editions. Also, applies to Proactive Service Add-on, Proactive Service for Community Add-on, and Unified Catalog Add-on.

How: In the scenario configuration, select guided troubleshooting as the resolution method and provide a scenario prompt. When a customer opens the Experience Cloud site and the resolution type is interactive troubleshooting, Agentforce Service agent begins the session using the provided prompt. All interactions are captured automatically for analysis and optimization.

2. Help Experience Cloud Site Users Track Their History with a Personalized Activity Timeline

Give your Experience Cloud site users a clear view of their activity history with an in-page timeline that highlights logins, case updates, messages, Website Engagement, and Web Search Engagement events. They can quickly understand what has happened, where they left off, and what has changed since their last visit, without navigating multiple pages.

Where: This change applies to Aura or LWR sites accessed through Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic in Enterprise, Professional, Unlimited, and Developer editions

How: In Experience Builder, drag the Timeline component into your site’s navigation area. Set up the component to show relevant events sourced from the user’s unified profile, including logins, messages, case updates, Website Engagement, and Web Search Engagement.

3. Bill AI Self-Service Usage More Accurately with Session-Based Tracking

Get more accurate billing for AI powered Self Service activity by tracking usage per authenticated login session.This feature groups all AI interactions, like Knowledge Article Summary or Dynamic Q&A within a single session, providing usage reports that reflect how customers engage with Agentic Portal features.

Where: This change applies to Aura or LWR sites accessed through Lightning Experience and Salesforce Classic in Enterprise, Professional, Unlimited, and Developer editions.

How: Session based usage tracking records AI feature activity for each authenticated login session. During a session, all AI interactions are collected and combined into a single usage record. Billing entries are created on a daily or configurable schedule and include session details and aggregated activity. Usage logs and reports provide visibility into feature consumption.

4. Gain Instant Case Context with Case Timeline

Give your reps a single, unified, and intelligent timeline component for cases. This new component replaces the current fragmented collection of feeds and related lists with a single curated view of case-related events. Reps get instant context with a proactive workspace that intelligently organizes customer conversations, internal team collaboration, and key case milestones. The new timeline brings together channels like emails, chats, and messages into a clean, threaded view.

Where: This change applies to Lightning Experience in Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer editions where Industries Service Excellence is enabled.

How: In Setup, in the Quick Find Box, find and select Timeline. In the Timeline window, turn on the Timeline Configuration.

5. Use Quick Text in Case Comments

With Quick Text, reps can quickly add predefined text snippets, including dynamic merge fields to Case Comments. Quick Text standardizes internal and external communication, keeps notes consistent, and saves time by reducing repetitive manual typing.

Where: This change applies to Lightning Experience in Essentials, Professional, Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer editions.

How: From Setup, in the Quick Find box, enter and select Quick Text Settings. Turn on Quick Text on the Quick Text Settings page. For Case Comments, admin must also turn on the Rich Text for Case Comments org preference in Support Settings. Your reps can access Quick Text by using the insert button or the Quick Text icon in the Case Comments editor.

6. Easily View Original Case Attachments

Reps can now view the original case attachments directly from the case details page. Original attachments include any files added by the customer in the initial message at the time of case creation. This feature eliminates the need for reps to navigate to the Attachments related list to locate these files.

Where: This change applies to Lightning Experience in Essentials, Professional, Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer editions.

How: The feature is turned on by default and is visible to all reps who have access to the case record and attachments. To turn it off, contact your Salesforce Customer Support.

On the Case Details page, click See Attachments to open the Original Attachments panel. To see all attachments, click View All Attachments.

7. Improve SLA Reporting by Using Rule-based Milestone Pause

Free up your service reps from the manual overhead of stopping a record when the next step is outside their purview. Admins can set rules to automatically pause milestones when the defined conditions are met. For example, a milestone can be paused automatically if the case status is “Waiting for Customer.” The milestone timer stops during the pause duration and resumes when the pause conditions change. The target date is reevaluated when the milestone unpauses. This helps with more accurate SLA reporting and clearly highlights delays.

Where: This change applies to Lightning Experience in Professional, Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, and Developer editions with the Service Cloud.

How: From the SLA Policies page, select the SLA policy for which you want to create a milestone. On the Milestones tab, click New Milestone. In the New Milestone window, go to the Pause tab and define your milestone pause criteria. Save your milestone and activate the SLA Policy.

8. Add More Context to Service Plans with Messaging Session and Voice Call Record Grounding

Enhance the accuracy and details of service plans by grounding Service Assistant in Messaging Session and Voice Call records. When these records are attached to a case, Service Assistant analyzes the transcripts to create a case summary that summarizes what took place in the conversation and drafts a service plan that continues from where the conversation ended. The grounding process boosts rep productivity by ensuring the service plan continues exactly from where the prior interaction left off and avoids repeating steps and manual context gathering.

Where: This change applies to Lightning Experience in Enterprise, Unlimited, and Developer editions with Einstein for Service, Agentforce for Service, and Agentforce 1 editions.

How: Assign your users the required permissions and then turn on Messaging and Voice record grounding in the Case tab of the Service Assistant Setup page.

9. Enhance Your Security of Organization-Wide Email Addresses

Organization-Wide Email Addresses (OWA) are now required to be verified before sending Case emails with custom content. This security enhancement prevents unauthorized use of the <noreply@salesforce.com> address and protects against potential phishing attempts.

Where: This change applies to all Salesforce editions that support Case email functionality.

Why: This security update ensures that all customers configure and verify their Organization-Wide Email Address before sending Case emails containing custom content. Previously, some organizations could bypass this requirement, creating a security risk where unauthorized users could potentially send malicious emails using the trusted @salesforce.com domain. This enhancement closes that security gap by enforcing verification requirements across all organizations.

How: If you’ve already configured and verified your Organization-Wide Email Address, no action is needed. If you haven’t set up your Organization-Wide Email Address or if your current setup wasn’t previously enforced, you must configure a verified Organization-Wide Email Address before sending emails with custom content. For setup instructions, see Set Up Organization-Wide Email Addresses in Salesforce Help.

10. Email Across Languages with Real-Time Translations

Let service reps translate Service Email conversations, expanding customer support across languages. A rep can translate an end user’s email into the rep’s language, as well as translate their response into the end user’s language before sending. Previously, a Service Email rep had to speak the same language as an end user in order to assist.

Where: This change applies to Service Email. View required editions.

How: Go to the Real-Time Translations node in Setup, and turn on Translate Service Email. Optionally, upload a custom terminology file to assist with translation of your business terminology.

A Service rep can translate an end-user’s email in the case feed by clicking the dropdown to the right of the email and selecting Translate Email Body.

A Service rep can translate their response to a customer by writing it in the case composer, highlighting it, and clicking the Translate action (1). If the output looks good, they click Insert (2), and then send their text.

11. Get Role-Based Case Overviews with Enhanced Summaries

Quickly catch up on cases with dynamic, AI-generated summaries tailored to your specific role and context. By surfacing only the essential information, Enhanced Summaries helps service reps and managers see precisely what is required for their role, reducing the time spent interpreting data and driving quicker, more informed customer interactions.

Where: This feature is available in Lightning Experience in Enterprise and Unlimited editions with the Agentforce for Service add-on or Agentforce 1 Edition. To purchase the Agentforce for Service add-on or Agentforce 1, contact your Salesforce account executive.

How: In Setup, go to the Enhanced Summaries page and turn on Enhanced Summaries. In the Available Objects section, on the Case tab, turn on the toggle for Case. Then, set up case summary configurations for different roles, such as Service Rep or Manager.

12. Organize Articles and Improve Navigation with Knowledge Maps

Organize your knowledge articles into a hierarchical structure to make it easier for users to find and navigate content. This feature helps to keep your knowledge base ‌consistent and well-structured, enhancing user experience and efficiency. This feature, which is now generally available, includes some changes since the pilot release.

Where: This change applies to Lightning Experience in Essentials, Professional, Enterprise, Unlimited, and Developer editions.

How: In Setup, go to the Enhanced Knowledge Settings page and turn on Knowledge Maps. Then, click Create to build a default relationship map to fill structural gaps in your knowledge base hierarchy where articles without relationships are set as individual root articles.

13. Get More Done in the Lightning Article Editor

With the improved Lightning Article Editor, write knowledge articles more efficiently. Take advantage of the streamlined features to create top-notch content.

Where: This change applies to Lightning Experience in Essentials, Professional, Enterprise, Unlimited, and Developer editions.

How: To help you write knowledge articles more efficiently, Lightning Article Editor has several key improvements.

Here are the general improvements.

• You can now use Dark Mode in the article editor, making it easier to edit content in low-light environments.
• Editing articles on the iPad is now easier. The expanded toolbar in narrow layouts no longer blocks your editing space, allowing full access to toolbar options while you edit.
• The editor toolbar is now visually consistent. Split buttons now match the size and look of the other buttons.
• You can now edit smart links in bulleted or numbered lists in knowledge articles without affecting the formatting of the list.
• You can now easily switch between numeric (1, 2, 3) and alphabetic (a, b, c) numbering styles in nested lists. Previously, switching from alphabetic back to numeric wasn’t easy.
• We’ve resolved general formatting issues with numbered and bulleted lists in the article editor.
• The format and alignment of bulleted lists are now the same in the draft version and the published article.
• The paragraph spacing is now consistent in the article editor and accurately reflects the spacing in the published article.
• Anchor links in Knowledge articles now smoothly scroll to the target section, giving readers a better experience in long articles.
• In Chromium browsers like Chrome, Edge, Opera, and Brave, dragging content in the article editor caused unexpected scrolling. This issue is now fixed, making drag-and-drop much better.
• The tooltips on toolbar buttons now disappear as expected when you move your mouse away.

Here are the accessibility-related improvements.

• Screen reader users can now give article feedback more easily. Screen readers correctly announce “Was this article helpful?” when they reach the Like or Dislike buttons on the article.
• We increased the contrast ratio for non-text elements like icons, buttons, and borders in the article editor to meet accessibility standards, making the interface easier to use for users with low-vision.
• The article editor now shows the word count and includes ARIA label, making it easy for screen reader users to track their word count as they write.

Conclusion

The Spring ’26 Service Cloud release clearly emphasizes intelligence, context, and efficiency across every layer of customer support. With AI-powered assistance, unified timelines, automated milestone management, and improved knowledge and content tools, service teams can move away from reactive workflows toward proactive, outcome-driven service.

These updates not only enhance agent productivity but also improve customer experiences by reducing resolution times, eliminating friction, and ensuring consistent service delivery. As service demands continue to grow, Spring ’26 equips organizations with the tools they need to scale support confidently.

Connect with our experts to understand how these Spring ’26 Service Cloud features can be implemented effectively and aligned with your service strategy.