Data, AI, CRM, and trust. Those were the four words that epitomized Salesforce Dreamforce 2023. As we enter the ‘new wave’ of generative AI, Salesforce’s mission is to place ‘human’ at the centre of it, providing better insights in real-time and more authentic interactions with the customer. Here are our top 5 highlights from one of the biggest events in tech.
“So, if AI is the Wild West… who’s the sheriff ’round here?”
/Matthew McCounaghey/
Get into the groove by watching Dreamforce 2023 Opening Film “Magic in the Air” with a special star performance.
Dreamforce 2023 highlight #1:
The compass of trust
Mahalo nui loa.
Salesforce’s CEO and Chair, Marc Benioff, kicked off the Main Keynote in true Hawaiian spirit, by thanking everyone who has made Salesforce what it is today: the third-largest software company in the world.
As well as its ambition for growth, he attributed much of Salesforce’s success to its focus on core values of trust, customer success, innovation, equality, and sustainability.
Benioff went on to acknowledge that we’re currently in the ‘second wave’ of the AI Revolution, which Salesforce prefer to call the Data Revolution as AI is only possible because of the data that gets fed into its algorithms. And the only way to navigate what’s ahead of us is by going back to our values. How we shape AI and how companies use that technology, is up to Salesforce, the Sheriff of AI.
As we enter the ‘new wave’ of generative AI, Salesforce’s mission is to become the world’s trusted AI Platform for companies. And it’s going to get there by integrating real-time data, Einstein Trust Layer, and Einstein Copilot into all of its core CRM apps.
Stay tuned for some truly exciting times ahead!
Watch Dreamforce 2023 Main Keynote here. Or, if you’re short for time, this 10-minute summary will give you all the highlights with your morning coffee.
Dreamforce 2023 highlight #2:
Everyone's an Einstein
There are so many applications that use AI today. And while many have received negative press, like concerns over data privacy or fear of ‘robots taking our jobs’, AI does have the ability to serve humans and make our working lives that much easier, more efficient, and more productive. It all depends on what values this technology is built on.
Driven by human-centricity, Einstein 1 CoPilot is now available for every cloud on Salesforce.
For instance, Copilot for Sales can look at all your sales leads and automatically create prospects, set up meetings, generate quotes, proposals, as well as create a transcript with next steps and actions, following a sales call (a menial task that takes up so much of sales teams’ time).
All the while, Einstein 1 for Service Cloud can generate automatic responses and answers to a wealth of customer questions, ensuring that your Customer Service reps are automatically up to date with the latest intel on your customers and product releases, generating helpful and personalized answers on the fly for any communication channel that your customers use.
And there’s more AI magic in store. Copilot for Commerce can save your teams tons of time by automatically generating commerce sites that are optimized for conversion, with pre-built personalization.
Meanwhile, Segment Intelligence can help your marketing team sift through contacts in no-time, creating intelligently segmented lists, building tailored marketing journeys, and campaigns that deliver more value and more authentic interactions for your customers.
Find out more about how to build your customer 360 with Trusted AI in this Dreamforce IT Keynote.
Eager to learn more about the magic of Einstein Copilot and Einstein Copilot Studio? Head over to this page.
Dreamforce 2023 highlight #3:
Personalization... without being creepy
Einstein 1 Data Cloud is a hyperscale data engine inside Salesforce that connects all your data. Included in Sales, Service, Marketing, Commerce and Industries, it integrates natively with Salesforce metadata, with 2 trillion records processed each month already. This number is only expected to grow as more and more companies start to use it.
By using Data Cloud, deeply embedded in Einstein 1, you can connect to any data within your organization, whether that be hosted on a Salesforce app or an external cloud vendor application (such as AWS, Google Cloud, or Microsoft). And best of all—you can do this with no code at all!
But with 52% of consumers saying they don’t believe AI is safe and secure, Salesforce will have to do some work to convince them that their data really is safe.
“Your data is not our product” was the tagline of Dreamforce 2023. With its tenets of Trusted, Ethical, and Humane AI, Salesforce is leading the world through the next wave of generative AI. To address its customers’ concern and without losing any of the benefits of generative AI, Salesforce has been able to integrate Einstein’s Trust Layer into all of its products.
What does this mean for you? Unlike other generative AIs, whenever you interact with Salesforce as a customer or as an end-user, there is zero retention of your personal data. What’s more, anything new that’s generated through the Einstein 1 Platform (such as new apps that make processes even more efficient) will be checked for ‘toxicity’ to ensure that any ethical issues are ironed out before its release.
Dreamforce 2023 highlight #4:
Free Data Cloud and Tableau licenses
To help their customers get started with all these wonderful integrations and get real-time data insights that could take their business and customer interactions to the next level, Salesforce also announced they’re giving away free Data Cloud & Tableau licenses, available for their Enterprise, Unlimited, and Unlimited Plus customers.
Ready to claim yours and get started? All you need to do is scan a QR code, available on this page.
The ability to store real-time data and combine it with Salesforce transactional data could be a game-changer for your business, helping you to deliver highly personalized user experiences across all stages of the customer journey. (To find out more about the capabilities of Data Cloud and how to maximize ROI of your Data Cloud investment, check out this article).
But you still need the talent who can implement Data Cloud and help you make the most of everything it has to offer.
Whether you’re looking to build advanced Data Cloud capabilities in your existing teams or bring net-new Data Cloud accredited professionals into your team, Revolent can help. Head over to this page to find out more about our world-leading Data Cloud Training Program, co-designed with Salesforce.
Dreamforce 2023 highlight #5:
Clean data lakes that power AI: Snowflake and Databricks
AI would be nothing without data. Or rather, it would be nothing without clean data.
Salesforce recognizes this, which is why it has announced two new, crucial partnerships for the future of Einstein Platform 1 and Data Cloud: the Databricks Lakehouse Platform and Snowflake.
Staying true to its core mission of bringing a unified 360-degree view of a customer, this is a significant development for Salesforce and Data Cloud. This collaboration bridges the gap between Salesforce’s functionality and these two cloud data warehouses, creating a harmonized, clean, and secure view of the customer data for Salesforce’s end-users.
Expert insights
We asked our own SVP of Global Alliances & Channels, Curtis Brackett (who saw all the Dreamforce excitement firsthand) to share his thoughts on the impact of these two partnerships. Prior to joining Revolent, Curtis had nearly a decade of experience at Salesforce where he rose through the ranks and managed a $150M portfolio, comprised of Salesforce’s most strategic consulting partners. This is what he had to say:
“At Dreamforce, I was very excited to delve deep into what the future holds as we come to terms with the full extent of AI capabilities that Salesforce can already offer to its customers, let alone those we’ll see in the months and years to come.
As someone who spent nine years at Salesforce, I know just how crucial clean, secure data is for unlocking the full potential of AI.
The ties go deep between Salesforce, Snowflake, and Databricks, which is what makes this new partnership so solid, in my opinion. Securing a seamless functionality thanks to this collaboration will take the functionality of Data Cloud and Salesforce CRM to the next level, unlocking new and exciting opportunities that can provide businesses with the kind of decision-making insights that are difficult, if not impossible, to obtain through any other means.”
