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

Introduction
The Winter ’26 Release delivers a range of updates to Service Cloud in Lightning, focused on enhancing self-service, accelerating case resolution, and empowering service teams with AI-driven capabilities. From smarter knowledge article summaries to predictive quick text and advanced portal deployment, these features are designed to improve agent productivity while elevating the customer experience.

This blog highlights key updates such as AI-generated knowledge summaries, Agentforce-powered automation, case prioritization tools, and enhanced communication features. Each improvement helps service teams work faster, make informed decisions, and resolve customer issues more effectively.

Get ready to explore how Winter ’26 transforms Service Cloud into a more intelligent, responsive, and seamless platform for service delivery.

1. New Inbound Email Limit for Email-to-Case

To improve your storage usage and our infrastructure, we now limit the daily number of inbound emails to 250 per case. In other words, each case can receive up to 250 emails per day. This is calculated on a rolling basis by looking back at the past 24 hours when processing each new email. Previously, there was no limit.

Where: This limit applies to in Salesforce Classic and Lightning Experience in Essentials, Starter, Professional, Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited and Developer editions.

How: This limit is automatically applied. Emails that go over this limit will fail with an exception notification email to the Automated Case User. To request an increase to this limit, contact Salesforce Customer Support.

2. Deploy Agents to Portals Faster with Agentforce Attach

Reduce setup time for Experience Cloud help centers with Agentforce Attach. Deploy an agent to any portal, confirm readiness for messaging, knowledge, and data, and finalize the setup in Experience Builder, all without building flows or writing code.

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

How: From Setup, in the Quick Find box, enter Agentforce, and then select Agentforce Setup. Use the guided setup flow to configure your agent’s name, behavior, and data access. Then, deploy it to your Experience Cloud site with a few clicks, no code required.

3. Launch a Help Center Portal Preconfigured with Agentforce Instantly

Quickly deploy agents to self-service portals from Agent Builder Surface and launch a preconfigured Help Center portal with Agentforce, Messaging for In-App and Web (MIAW), and Automated Service Actions (ASA). The Agent Builder Surface offers an intuitive user interface that streamlines the deployment of agents for testing. Previously, deploying Agentforce in a self-service portal required multiple manual steps, including setting up Experience Cloud, enabling messaging, and configuring automation.

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

How: From the Agent Builder Surface UI, select the Self-Service Portal Launch tile. Select a portal and enter a site name and URL, and the system auto-configures the rest. MIAW and ASA are enabled by default, and the Help Center template is prioritized for deployment.

4. Speed Up Self-Service with AI-Generated Knowledge Summaries

AI-generated summaries on knowledge articles quickly show customers whether an article is relevant or not, eliminating the need to read lengthy content. This reduces effort and helps them instantly determine whether the information addresses their issue, especially when coming from external search engines. These concise overviews are automatically generated and displayed consistently, speeding up self-service resolution.

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

How: The AI Summary Lightning Web Component (LWC) is available in Experience Builder. Add the component to Knowledge Article detail pages, and configure properties such as labels to align with your site’s design. The component is responsive and works across desktop and mobile devices.

5. Ask Questions Instantly with Context-Aware Quick Chats in Service Portals

You can now get precise, relevant answers without starting a full chat session. By selecting a word or phrase in a knowledge article, you can trigger a quick chat that automatically includes their browsing history and clickstream. The Agentforce Service Agent (ASA) uses this context to deliver accurate responses in real time, reducing your effort and improving self-service success.

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

How: From Experience Builder, add the Quick Chat component to a knowledge article page. Highlight-to-ask functionality is available on knowledge article pages. Configure the component to capture session context and clickstream data.nt community profile.

6. Act Quickly with Related Automations in Knowledge Articles

You can now see and launch relevant automations directly from a knowledge article. The new Related Automations section uses semantic matching to show automations that align with the article content, even if they aren’t explicitly linked, so you can take action without extra searching.

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 the Experience Builder or Lightning App Builder, add the Related Automations Lightning web component to a knowledge article page. Configure labels, descriptions, and default display properties to align with your site’s style. For unauthenticated access, enable spam protection such as reCAPTCHA. The component is responsive and works across desktop, tablet, and mobile devices.

7. Reduce Average Handle Time for Cases by Letting the Agentforce Employee Agent Close Cases for you

Help Service reps save precious time and decrease the amount of repetitive work they do by letting the Agentforce Employee Agent (AEA) close cases for them. You can provide the agent with a case number. The agent will retrieve the case record, check the case status and if the case status is one of the closed statuses, it will close the case. The agent is built on a template, and you can change the instructions in it.

Where: This change applies to Lightning Experience in Enterprise, Performance, Unlimited, Einstein 1 Edition, Agentforce 1 Edition, and Developer Editions.

How: There are two ways to set up the Close Case AEA:
1. In Setup, search for Agentforce Agents in Quick Find. In the Agentforce Agents window select the Default Agent. Open the default agent in the Agentforce Builder. In the Topics panel, from the New dropdown menu select Add from Asset Library. In the Add from Asset Library window, search for and select the Employee Case Management topic. The default agent will now have the instructions for the Close Case AEA.
2. In the Agentforce Agents window, select New Agent. In the Agent Creator window select Create from a Template. Use the Service Employee Help template to create the Close Case AEA.

8. Gain Better Insights into Case Team Member Contributions by Enabling Role-Based Reporting

Generate custom case reports that include case team member roles to analyze the number of cases solved, time spent, and bandwidth of team members. This feature helps you manage workload and assign cases more effectively.

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

How: In Setup, search for Report Types in Quick Find. Create a custom report using Case as the primary object and Case Team Member as the secondary object. The Case Team Member object is enabled with Team Role. You can use this custom report to generate reports that include the Team Role column.

9. Enhance Case Descriptions with Rich Text Formatting

Enable rich text formatting, images, and media for your case descriptions so your customers can capture their issues in greater detail. This means all customer information is captured accurately in the first interaction, reducing average handling time and improving the overall case resolution process.

Where: This change applies to Lightning Experience in Professional Edition (PE), Enterprise Edition (EE), Unlimited Edition (UE), and Unlimited Edition+ (UE+) editions.

How: in Setup, search and select Support Settings. In Support Settings select Edit. Select the checkbox for Rich Text for Case Description (Beta) and select Save.

10. Do More with the WhatsApp Flow Format

The WhatsApp Flow format for form messaging components now supports images and up to three questions per page. You can select how different input types are rendered on the end user’s device. You can preview a WhatsApp flow after you submit it to Meta.

Where: This change applies to enhanced WhatsApp channels.

How: To build your flow with customized content, use the Apex Class option when you add the Flow format for a form messaging component.

Then add content to your flow. For example, customize the flow with images and multiple questions per page.

11. Control Chat Button Visibility Based on Service Rep Availability

Improve response times by showing the chat button only when service reps are available. Control when the chat button appears by setting a queue limit either for each rep or for all online reps. The button is hidden when service reps are offline or the queue limit is reached, helping reduce delayed responses.

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

How: From Setup, go to Messaging Settings, and in the Chat Button Visibility section, select Show chat button only when a service rep is available. Define a queue limit either for each service rep or for all service reps that are online. Save your changes. Then, in Embedded Service Deployment Settings, click Publish to apply the changes.

12. Prioritize Cases Effectively to Prevent SLA Breaches by Tracking Milestone Time

Help service reps prioritize cases that need attention, helping them meet SLAs and maintain high service standards. With Time to Next Milestone in the case list view, they can easily identify cases that are nearing SLA violations, overdue, or stopped, and avoid SLA violations. Previously, while service reps had multiple cases in their queue, they didn’t have a clear indication of which ones to prioritize.

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

How: From Setup, in the Quick Find box, enter and select Entitlement Settings. Click Edit and select Show Time to Next Milestone. Open cases in a list view and check out the Time to Next Milestone column, which shows how much time is left to complete milestones. Use the sort option to prioritize cases nearing SLA violations.

13. Improved Translations of Knowledge Feedback Form

The survey questions in the feedback forms and the feedback responses are now correctly translated. Previously, there was an inconsistency in translation where the questions reverted to the original language after feedback was submitted.

Where: This change applies to Lightning Experience in Unlimited Edition and all other editions with the Knowledge add-on license.

How: From the App Launcher, find and select Surveys and open the knowledge feedback survey form that you want to translate. Go to the Languages tab and click Translate next to the desired language.

14. Call Support for Quick Help Directly from Knowledge Articles

You can now insert telephone links in Knowledge articles, so customers can call customer support for immediate assistance. Adding telephone links to articles helps customers get the support they need faster and improves the overall experience.

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

How: To add a telephone link to an article, in the Lightning Article Editor, click where you want to add the link, click Insert, and then select Link. On the Link page, enter the telephone number in the tel:+{country_code}{telephone_number} format. Next, enter the display text, set how to open your telephone link, and then save your changes.

15. Suggest Pre-Written Messages to Service Reps

With Predictive Quick Text, a service rep now sees a list of recently-used quick text snippets that match what they type in the conversation input field. Previously, a service rep had to open the Quick Text action and manually search for a snippet.

Where: This change applies to Enhanced Chat.

How: Start typing in the conversation input field, and scroll through the Predictive Quick Text list that appears. Click to insert a snippet into the conversation input field.

Conclusion

With the Winter ’26 Release, Salesforce strengthens the ability of service teams to deliver fast, accurate, and personalized support. From context-aware quick chats and AI-assisted knowledge insights to predictive messaging and enhanced case management, these updates streamline workflows and improve overall efficiency.

Connect with our experts to discover how the Winter ’26 Service Cloud features can enhance your service operations and empower your team to deliver exceptional customer experiences with LevelShift.