Refresh
And with that, that’s a wrap on our coverage of Dreamforce 2023. It’s been an action (and content) filled few days, and we still have a number of interviews and biefings to write up, so stay tuned to TechRadar Pro for all the news and updates you need.
“We’re inventing a new way of working,” Jones concludes, highlighting the major announcements made today in helping boost productivity across the board in a “productivity revolution”.
Huffington reflects how software is meant to help reduce downtime, but that stress still affects huge amounts of workers today.
Thrive looks to help reduce this stress, implementing into Slack to help workers to be at their best as they work.
Lidiane Jones is back to wrap things up – “clearly, AI can be transformative, and people can have a lot more fun at work.”
She invites up Ariane Huffington, media icon and founder and CEO of Thrive Global to chat about her work with Slack.
Developers can also benefit from using the new Slack platform, which offers a modular development framework that’s reusable and recomposable, allowing them to build and deploy custome apps with Slack’s Open API.
“Our platform is open, secure and trusted,” Reddy notes, “AI is thriving there.”
Anyone can make work easier on Slack, Reddy says, turning any process into an automated workflow with just a few clicks.
“Whatever you’re trying to do, our automation makes it easier for you to do so,” she says, introducing a demo that shows off how straightforward it can be to create an automated process that leaves more time for actual work.
Next up is automation, with Marable introducing Slack VP of software engineering Rukmini Reddy.
She’s here to talk about taking productivity to the next level via Slack Automation, which allows users to access all their apps, workflows and templates in a single place.
Slack can unlock the whole Salesforce 360, he adds, offering better insights, better intelligence, better data, and unlcoking all the investments users have made in Salesforce technology.
We’re then treated to a customer video showing how DIRECTV are using Slack and Salesforce to improve their overall customer experience, and a chat between Marable and DIRECTV’s Craig Reines about the relationship.
Having a mobile-friendly approach is also vital, he notes, with Slack offering customizable, clear views of all the data your sellers needs.
Sellers can quickly update notes, move stages along, and give colleagues the chance to collaborate and help close a deal thanks to this AI-powered platform.
What’s more – the mobile and desktop interfaces are identical, meaning no jarring jumps between platforms.
Moving on to CRM and Slack, Weiss introduces Reggie Marable, VP Sales at Slack to the stage.
“Not only are we changing and transforming how people work, but we’re transforming and revolutionizing how people sell,” he says, noting how tough the sales environment is right now.
Technology can go a long way to helping with this, he notes – introducing Slack Sales Elevate. “This is the future of selling,” he says, as it is giving salespeople more time to actually sell, rather than updating Salesforce or other menial admin tasks.
Users can also add AI-powered partner apps to Slack today, and deploy their own custom apps using their preferred AI tool.
Customers can also build no-code workflows with AI helpers, offering the steps needed to get the programming launched as soon as possible, Weiss notes.
Slack AI can even deal with questions, providing not just search results, but a real answer that also offers related content and files in Canvas.
It’s time for an overview of Slack AI. Weiss outlines the new Channel Recaps feature, which provides summaries of all your channels and chats without manually needing to trek through all your messages.
Weiss presents a demo that shows how AI is able to bring together all unread messages to create a quick summary of what was decided, and what actions and next steps are needed to take a project forward.
Weiss moves on to AI, saying that the company has “a very unique take” on using AI in Slack.
Trust and confidence is again emphasised as a key function, with user confidence and security a major consideration.
Slack offers enterprise-grade security and compliance, with your private data “100% under your control”, Weiss says.
Slack Canvas is highlighted as a particularly important new feature, bringing collaboration and transparency to all teams.
Slack Lists are also revealed, giving users an alternative to endless spreadsheets, a simpler, more engaging way to track work throughout your company, Weiss says.
Noah Weiss, chief product officer at Slack, is on stage to talk through the new Slack.
“This is the mos exciting set of product innovation we’ve ever been able to show you,” he declares.
“We’re excited to innovate…because we think we can help every organization in the industry accelerate and be ahead of the market trends,” she notes.
Slack is impacting thousands of users across the world, Jones says – and this is only set to improve with the “new Slack”.
Connecting your people and technology with AI is vital for businesses today, she says – across all levels of your workforce.
“Everybody can transform work, and when organizations empower their users to transform work, that work becomes not only more productive, results are better.”
But it’s Jones who kicks things off, welcoming us to the keynote.
“We are undergoing an incredible technological shift in our industry right now. We are seeing an acceleration of AI innovation that is transforming every part of our lives.”
“Slack has been building for this moment from the very beginning,” she adds.
Jones is set to be joined by Reggie Marable, Head of Sales — Communications, Media & Tech, Salesforce, Rukmini Reddy, SVP, Software Engineering, Slack, Salesforce, and Noah Weiss, Chief Product Officer, Slack, Salesforce, so it should be a packed session.
We’re back for our final keynote session of Dreamforce 2023, and it’s from everyone’s “favorite” collaboration tool Slack.
A Salesforce company since July 2021, Slack has become an integral part of the software giant’s offerings, with millions of users across the globe.
Slack has announced a raft of AI-powered features and tools recently, so we’re expecting to hear more on all of this in a talk hosted by company CEO Lidiane Jones.
With that, Kurian leaves the stage, and that’s a wrap for this session! We’ll be back soon with more from Slack to wrap up the final day of Dreamforce 2023.
Asked how he sees the future, Kurian notes that Google’s work is to “simplify technology so that people can use it together.”
He adds that the next steps are simplifying activation and giving AI more foundational understanding of industry-specifc languages.
Kurian also gives focus to the company’s PALM 2 AI model, which is being used in a wide range of use cases to boost efficiency and productivity in industries as varied as healthcare to wealth management.
“It’s just deepening the work we can do to make it easier for people to use these capabilities together,” he says.
Google Docs, Slides and Gmail are among the Workspace tools getting a Salesforce AI boost, with trust again at the center.
Kurian notes there are three foundational principles – a customer’s data is theirs alone, improving factuality AI grounding (to make sure AI models provide the best and most accurate results) and a wide range of responsibility controls to allow users to trust in the platform.
Clara Shih comes back to stage to wrap up this session with what she says is a further exciting announcement.
Salesforce is working closer with Google Workspace, and Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud, joins Shih on stage.
“We’ve always shared this view that AI is meant to assist people in getting work done,” he notes.
We’re on to the last part of our talk now, and that’s the future of CRM.
Alexa Vignone, EVP of Sales-CMT, takes to the stage to talk about marrying ideas to technology, working with your data to create trusted AI on your terms.
Salesforce looks to offer your business maximum flexibility and customization across the board, she says, all while keeping your data safe and protected.
Gucci is looking to keep AI human-centric, as its customers demand a high-end experience, with the human touch an important factor, Tosca notes.
Gucci is over 100 years old, Tosca notes, but has a big passion for technology and AI, especially when it comes to customization and personalization in customer experiences.
Having worked with Salesforce for over two years, Gucci has seen a boost in shopping engagement and client services, using Einstein to collaborate with its advisors to improve response and replies.
Shih returns to the stage, and welcomes another customer – and quite a fashionable one.
Gilberto Tosca, the CTO and CIO of Gucci, and Vasilis Dimitropoulos, head of global client services and product care, join her on stage.
Shih reveals Gucci was “business case number zero” for Salesforce Service GPT, motivated by the company’s need to “Guuci-fy” its conversations with high-spending customers hunting for a bespoke experience.
Clara Shih is back on stage, welcoming Salesforce’s Dr Claire Cheng from the company’s engineering team to chat a little more about trusted AI.
“Trust is our number one priority,” Cheng asserts, noting that AI needs to be trusted and steerable.
The Einstein Trust Layer, “ensures the safety and security across your entire AI and data journey,” she notes, outlining how the system operates to keep company data protected.
After a very thorough demo, MK also taks a look at the future of Data Cloud, which includes further semantic search and more in-depth functionalities.
To talk more about how generative AI can benefit your business, he welcomes to the stage Joe Inzerillo, EVP and chief product & technology officer at, SiriusXM Radio.
Inzerillo says that the company wants listeners, “to feel like we’re talking right to them.”
“Data cloud underneath is really the plumbing that allows the AI side of it to sing,” he notes.
Data Cloud is deeply integrated within Salesforce – particularly in the Einstein 1 platform, he adds, meaning you can still create your usual reports and dashboards, as well as all the usual Salesforce tasks you’d expect.
MK, as he is also know, is here to talk about Data Cloud, which he says “can really bring all the data that you have together to harmonize and really power all of your experiences.”
He runs the crowd through exactly how Data Cloud brings together all of your business data across various units and platforms, without the need for over-complexity.
Shih notes that the more data you give a model, the less likely hallucinations will be.
“It’s so exciting to see how data cloud is expnacing as a data lake, a data warehouse,” she says.
She welcomes Muralidhar Krishnaprasad, EVP Software Engineering at Salesforce, to the stage to expand on this.
Now it’s time for a quick demo showing why it’s so important to have data as a part of AI.
Einstein is able to use generative AI to create a personalized email for a customer lead based on data pulled together from a raft of sources. Einstein Copilot’s prompt builder allows companies to tailor their prompts, giving more flexibility than ever before.
Shih moves on to discuss Einstein 1, the new platform announced this week, which she describes as, “the future of CRM…the future of enterprise AI.”
“We’re really excited to show you all what it can do,” she declares.
“Trust is the number one value of Salesforce,” she says, noting that AI raises a host of new questions and challenges.
Clara Shih takes to the stage, and welcomes us all in today.
“It’s an amazing time to be alive,” she says, “There’s no question, we are in an AI and data revolution…which means we’re in a customer revolution, and a business evolution.”
First up today is a keynote from a host of AI heayweights, including Clara Shih, CEO of Salesforce AI, and no less than Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud.
They’ll be joined by a host of Salesforce experts and customers, so we’re intrigued to hear more shortly…
Good morning from day three of Dreamforce!
There will be a few sore heads this morning no doubt after last night’s Dreamfest conference party, which saw rock gods the Foo Fighters play to an adoring crowd at San Francisco’s Chase Center.
We’re up and raring to go for the final day, with several action-packed keynotes on the way, so stay tuned for all the latest updates…
Our last question (Benioff is off to interview California Governor Gavin Newsom and film star Matthew McConaughey this afternoon) is about the recent Salesforce shake-ups and any possible succession plans.
Benioff shrugs the suggestion he is leaving any time soon with a laugh, and that’s that!
A question about Salesforce building its own LLMs is next up, and Benioff confirms most of these are indeed made from scratch.
“Because we have been so blessed to have so many amazing researchers, we were able to build so many awesome models,” he notes.
Next question is around Salesforce working with MSPs, and the opportunity this provides.
“I think we’re going to see a lot of entreprenuers,” he says, “now, everyone realizes a lot of these companies can scale and move quickly.”
“I know a lof of software in our industry needs to be rewritten…we’re rewriting a lot of our software right now.”
Next is a question about AI in developing markets and countries, and how the technology could be used for good.
“I think no-one is ready for AI,” Benioff replies, harking back to the early days of ChatGPT and Bard, but that there is a huge opportunity to provide education for everyone.
Benioff is then asked a local question about San Francisco, and if the city is doing enough to be welcoming to technology companies.
There’s been a lot of speculation that Dreamforce won’t be returning to San Francisco next year, but Benioff does say, “we’re moving in the right direction” despite issues around policing and homelessness.
There’s no final answer though on whether we’ll be back here next year though, but he does note that San Francisco is “the biggest AI city in the world.”
First off, he’s asked about his conversation with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman yesterday, and Altman’s quote about hallucinations being “not a bug, but a feature”.
“We’re just at the beginning,” Benioff notes, “these technologies are like toddlers right now, but they’re going to grow up fast…it’s going to be a huge leap, and we’re going to witness history being made.”
Marc Benioff welcomes us all, and hopes we’re having a good time, and is here to take some questions.
A bit of a disruption here as our special guest has arrived…
The nex question is around helping people work effectively with AI, and how Salesforce is pushing education around the AI benefits.
Shih notes that many consumers may have felt burnt around AI over the last few years, but that Salesforce s continuing to push its trust-first model as a priority.
“Consumer education is very important in all of this – similar to the Internet era, ChatGPT was their first introduction to generative AI,” she states, “our job is to educate consumers and employees around what’s important in the enterprise space.”
A question about the EU AI Act is next, with Loeb asked how Salesforce is set to deal with the legislation.
Although it is still to be finalized, and generative AI has thrown a small spanner in the works, he notes that there is still a lot of progress to be made and ongoing discussions around policy development.
“It’s not a static process that will continue to evolve…and that’s a good thing,” he says.
Shih emphasizes the Salesforce view that it’s user’s data is not their product, and that users have complete control and visibility over what data gets used to train and run models.
Next is a question on Salesforce Ventures, and what exactly the body is looking for when it invests.
Somorjai asserts it is a global effort, with investments across 27 countries already, particularly around AI start-ups.
On to Q&A now, with the panel asked how they see the future of reconciling different nations and bodies across the world with AI.
Loeb replies that the sheer pace of technological development often makes this difficult, but there is intent to keep the controls ongoing.
Baxter adds that creating standards would be “an excellent next step” towards this control, and that the public-private collaboration will be vital.
Next up, Eric Loeb, EVP, Government Affairs, is asked about the governance of AI, particularly at a national and federal level.
“There’s a lot of interest…and there rightly should be,” he notes, “this is a transformational technology…but there has to be a sense of trust and responsibility.”
“But you need to have public policy, and regulation…but it’s not one size fits all, you need to think about different use cases.”
John Somorjai, Chief Corporate Development & Investments Officer at Salesforce, is asked about the company’s AI development fund, and the motivations behind it.
He notes how AI technology saw a huge spur in interest and development, so the need to create a reliable and interesting ecosystem of partners was critical.
An initial $250 million investment was quickly spent, with a further doubling following soon.
Kathy Baxter from Salesfoce Principal Architecture, Ethical AI Practice is next up, talking more about the company’s responsibilities and practices when it comes to artificial intelligence.
“It goes back to our company DNA, and respecting our customer’s data,” she notes, “you can feel confident in (our models) and that it’s going to be accurate.”
“It’s incredibly important in a business context, that if you’re using AI…it’s got to be accurate.”
Shih is then asked about the long-term future of AI at Salesforce, and what the priorities are.
Trust is the main focus, she replies, adding that the approach to using generative AI in a safe and trusted manner is paramount.
The business impact is also important though, with AI needing to show its own importance and functionality, with organizational readiness another vital factor.
“You need both a top-down strategy, as well as a bottom-up one,” she says.
Clara Shih is first up – asked which of the many Salesforce announcements from yesterday she’s most excited about, she mentions Einstein GPT first up, but that customers wanted extra customization options.
This inspired her team to develop Einstein Copilot Studio, particularly the Skills Builder and Prompt Builder tools.
“It really was a platform approach that is so exciting, and I think, the future of AI,” she says.
Our panel is set to be made up of Clara Shih, EVP & GM, Salesforce AI, Kathy Baxter, Principal Architecture, Ethical AI Practice, John Somorjai, Chief Corporate Development & Investments Officer, and Eric Loeb, EVP, Government Affairs (alongside a moderator)…but there are six chairs on stage – so who else could be joining us?
And we’re back – after a refuelling lunch and coffee stop, it’s time for our next panel session.
Entitled “The Future of AI at Salesforce” this promises to be more of an in-depth look at how the company is planning to utilize artificial intelligence within itself.
We’ve also been told a certain special guest with the initials M.B. might be taking part, so we’ve got a good spot to make sure we hear all his wisdom.
That’s a wrap on this panel session – we’ll be back soon with more updates and news soon!
Scardino adds that purpose doesn’t change – and helping people be more productive is the main aspect. Finally, Jones adds that anything that helps solve over-working and stress, allowing people to spend more time with those they love, and focus on well-being is the most important.
“We can be happier at work, we can care about our connections, and we’ll hopefully have more time for the things that matter the most,” she hopes.
Final question – and it’s about happiness!
The panel is asked how AI can improve the quality of life for not just workers, but everyone.
Perez says that even though AI has been around for a while, there’s nothing more difficult and challenging for developers that when their code isn’t working, or the systems go down. AI support means software quality can keep improving, leading to better quality of life for developers, managers and other IT workers.
“What makes technologists happy is building technology that works!” he notes.
Asked if we’re now moving past the AI fear and scaremongering period, Jones says that she certainly believes so.
“It’s amazing how much it’s shifted over just the past nine months,” she says, “leaders are trying to help their employees understand their own journeys…I have seen a meaningful shift towards, how can I be a part of it, across the board.”
Jones also highlights Salesforce (and Slack’s) focus on equality, and how AI transformation means knowledge can be more accessible that ever.
“If we do it well, we can start laying the groundwork for more global equality,” she notes.
Jones is asked how deeply the Slack and Salesforce relationship can develop in the future.
“We’re just starting on our journey of expanding on what Slack is,” she notes, highlighing the opportunities created by Slack Elevate in particular.
“Every company is trying to figure out what (AI) means for them,” she adds, “so Slack becomes really critical for companies during a period of transformation.”
Slack has become a critical part of any company looking to develop and evolve, she notes.
Asked about the impact of AI on junior level roles in particular, Scardino says she understands the concern.
Salesforce has continued investment into its internships and entry-level roles to focus more on the flexibility and agility to learn new skills.
“A company has to look for skills beyond the expertise,” she says.
Jones adds that Slack looks to help employees build the right skills, saying that agility is also a key consideration for her company.
Asked about strategies to mitigate the “AI trust gap” mentioned by Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff yesterday, Perez notes that Einstein Trust Layer should go a long way to enabling this.
“I feel really good about boosting Salesforce AI within Salesforce (because of this,” he says.
“We’re really excited to make productivity fun again,” Jones concludes, as we move to Q&A.
Scardino says she thinks about AI in a critical thinking capacity, and Salesforce is focused on using the technology for productivity gains.
“The right kind of productivity…(means) the employee experience improves, you feel aligned with the company,” she notes.
Jones follows up by saying Slack believes that, “if an employee feels productive, that’s really good.”
“We are on a mission to help empower users…to be in charge of reshaping their own productivity,” she adds, “that empowerment really helps unlock what productivity really means.”
“It unlocks a whole new way to work.”
Turning towards productivity, the panel is asked how they are talking about AI when it comes to customers.
Perez says he believes, “every company has the opportunities for productivity,” adding that, ” as you improve productivity, quality goes with it…it’s a virtuous cycle.”
CIOs are being challenged by their bosses to find ways to improve productivity and efficiency, with tecnology central to this, he notes, and now AI is here.
“We still haven’t seen the full story written…we’re seeing AI as another enabler for productivity improvements,” he says.
Jones notes that Salesforce has always gone deep on responsible and ethical technology and AI use – “it’s been fundamental for us in how we build our software, and how we behave, that we have a really high bar for ethics,” she notes.
Perez is asked how he is adopting responsible AI, and what status it takes within the company.
“I think of AI as another application – it needs to meet standards, it needs to be secure…and it needs to meet the demands of customers, and us, across the organization.”
He notes that Salesforce has created an AI council tasked with spreading AI across the business, but also boosting “enterprise AI” – allowing other parts of the business to speak up on how they would like to use AI.
Perez adds that as a CIO, the use of AI to improve overall software quality, from coders upwards, will transform “significantly”.
“We won’t replace developers, but will look to build better technology,” he states.
Scardino adds that AI is playing a big role in Salesforce’s hiring policies, saving lots of time previously spent sifting on resumes, and spending more time getting to know candidates and the demands of the role.
“You also have to think about what doesn’t change,” she notes, “the human relationship will always be important.”
A generative AI question for Slack CEO Jones, who is asked how she sees the future of work changing.
“I’m really optimistic,” she says, “Slack started with a mission to make people’s lives easier…and more productive.”
“What AI can provide for all of us…is taking care of bureaucracy work to make us the best workers.”
“When done well, AI can help us transform ourselves, and better the whole world…our belief is that we can do it with trust in mind, and it can be quite transformative.”
“We want to be the platform that unlocks this responsible transformation.”
Asked about how best to deal with the incoming AI skills gap, Nathalie Scardino, interim Chief People Officer, Salesforce, highlights the work the company is doing to boost AI skills adoption, as hiring the best workers is the key to assuring a strong future.
Salesforce also offers a wide variety of AI learning kits and skills on its Trailhead online learning platform, and Scardino also highlights how “continual learning” at the company is putting AI first when it comes to innovation.
Lidiane Jones, Slack CEO, is asked how she works with Salesforce (and Perez) to unlock the power of AI.
“Being customer zero means we waste no opportunity to ask for new features,” she jokes, “it’s not sequential that work is done, it’s collaborative.”
“We look at, how are we supporting our teams to effectively transform how they are working,” she adds, naming Slack Elevate as a key example of this idea.
“Our mission is to transform how productivity is done with a platform that is connecting people and systems,” Jones notes.
Asked what he prioritizes as CIO when it comes to AI, Juan Perez notes that the company always utilizes any new technology first to make sure there are no issues.
“When it comes to AI, we have been customer zero,” he notes, with Einstein Sales and Einstein Service among the most recent launches.
First up for us this morning is a press panel about “AI in the workplace” – a growing consideration (and concern) for many businesses.
It’s a bit of an all-star line-up too, with Juan Perez, Salesforce CIO, Nathalie Scardino, interim Chief People Officer, Salesforce, and Lidiane Jones, Slack CEO all set to give their thoughts.
Good morning from day two of Dreamforce! After yesterday’s product and AI-filled keynote, things are a bit different today, as the focus switches more towards specific panel and focus events.
However there are also keynotes on the future of work, marketing and lots more on AI, so stay tuned for all the latest updates.
Benioff is back to wrap things up, covering all the main announcements from this morning, and thanking us all for coming.
And that’s a wrap for the opening keynote! We’re off to digest everything we’ve heard, but will be back shortly with the other main keynotes and sessions from the day – thanks for joining us, and see you soon for more Dreamforce 2023 fun.
Canvas is also getting an upgrade, with the content generator service now able to pull in all related sales information to help salespeople, marketers and more – making sure they are equipped with everything they need to succeed.
“This is the future of productivity,” she says.
Among the new features are Slack Lists, a new way to track your work with collaboration at the core.
Launching as a pilot later this year, it can use generative AI to bring together workflows from all your chats, meaning you hopefully shouldn’t miss any key deadlines.
Slack Sales Elevate also promises to use AI to help users save time and boost efficiency – bringing the power of Sales Cloud and Slack together for maximum productivity.
Next up is productivity – and to talk through that, it’s Slack CEO Lidian Jones.
She’s here to show off some new Salesforce integrations that will show off “a brand new user experience”.
The “new Slack” has a number of changes and tweaks, including a number of accessibility upgrades – all with AI at the core.
“This is an entirely new way to build applications…you are all Einsteins now,” Stokes concludes.
AI is changing everything, right down to how we build apps, Stokes notes – as an AI application offers a new way of thinking and development.
Creating these new apps requires a new set of tools – and for these new AI apps, this is Einstein 1 Copilot Studio.
This helps extend and customize exactly what you need Einstein to do within your business, connecting models and data from a wide range of different sources.
Stokes shows off a demo where additional customized requests can be created and utilized quickly and simply, giving a richer customer experience all round.
Benioff now turns to the future of AI – and how you can make it successful inside your company.
Patrick Stokes, from Salesforce product and industries marketing, is here to tell us more.
Benioff just confirmed his swanky sneakers are made by Gucci – another Salesforce customer!
Benioff is back, chatting to Laura Alvarez, the CEO of Williams-Sonoma about how the company utilized Salesforce technology.
He also asks her about her dreams for AI – with Alvarez replying that gaining customer trust by adding value is vital.
“The last thing you want to do is hurt the customer experience,” she notes. “When it comes to customers, there has to be nothign artificial about the experience…it has to be completely authentic.”
It’s now time for some customer stories, with commerce giant Williams-Sonoma up first. They’re using Salesforce across the board, creating smarter and more engaging email marketing campaigns via CRM and Einstein Copilot.
Einstein 1 is also coming to Tableau – giving more data to more companies to help them make smarter and better decisions, Schmaier notes.
It’s also coming to Canvas, Slack, MuleSoft and many more – this really could be a game-changer for Salesforce users everywhere.
David Schmaier, president and chief product officer, is next up, and introduces the new Einstein 1 Copilot.
“This is a big, big deal – the data powers the AI, and the AI powers your customer experience,” he notes.
The new tool can provide a huge range of services – from providing sales people with automatically-generated leads documents, or service agents with the latest customer and product information, or marketers with easily-tweakable campaigns – the possibilities seem endless.
Data Cloud is now free to get started, Harris notes, with all Enterprise, Unlimited and Unlimited Plus subscribers.
Harris now digs a little more into Data Cloud – noting that Salesforce is partnering with nearly all top data lake providers to get hold of your data, then harmonizing it and powering it into Data Cloud in real-time.
Basically, Salesforce wants to ensure making sense of your data is easier than ever – and some demos show just how simple bringing together these different sources can be – at least in theory.
“In a way, this AI revolution is actually a data revolution,” Harris notes, “because the AI revolution wouldn’t exist without the power of all that data.”
You need to bring together these “islands of disconnected data” – and Einstein 1 Data Cloud can do this, connecting all your data inside Salesforce, integrating natively with Salesforce metadata.
With that, Benioff hands over the mic to Parker Harris, Salesforce co-founder and CTO.
He starts off by talking about how the company is going to keep your data safe – primarily through the new Einstein Trust Layer.
Primarily, this looks to keep information protected from unscrupulous LLMs, as well as keeping it safe from hallucinations or any other toxicity.
The AI revolution is a trust revolution, Benioff notes – “we have a very different narratvie when it comes to AI – we are not afraid to say things that other companies are afraid to say.
“Your data is not our product – that’s not what we do here,” he asserts, unlike a lot of other companies.
“Transparency builds trust…We all know what can happen is AI goes wrong – let’s keep it going in the right direction.”
Einstein 1 is open to all the Salesforce family, as Benioff notes it is Trailblazers who will help lead the AI revolution.
This will include major overhauls when it comes to skills training, and Salesforce is also investing $500 million Ventures fund for Einstein 1 innovators.
When it comes to the AI opportunity – “there’s no question that this AI opportunity is going to change everything…or anything,” Benioff notes.
But Benioff recognizes there is an AI trust gap – noting that LLMs can turn toxic very quickly. “We recognise this is a phenomenal opportuniy for the future, some place we all want to work to get to.”
The solution – Einstein 1. “We want to built the trusted AI platform for customer companies,” he notes. Integrated, intelligent, auotmated, Einstein 1 works with low code and no code, built to be open.
“This is our life’s work – this is what we’ve been doing for 25 years,” Benioff notes.
Here we go – it’s time to talk AI.
“We want to help our customers connect with their customers in a whole new way…but we recognise tehcnology is moving faster than ever…this data explosion, this burst of artificial intelligence – it’s like nothing we’ve ever seen before,” Benioff notes.
“This AI revolution is going to change who we are…but it will bring us back to who we are.”
Einstein AI is already incredibly popular, he notes, as Salesforce is already the number one AI platform used around the world.
“Now we have to think about – what are we doing with this technology?”
Benioff has some very funky cloud-themed sneakers (Converse?) on – he just marched right past us, acting out a story from his school days…
Benioff notes that, “we’re inspired to see business is the greatest platform for change”- with the company still giving 1% of its equity, and contributing 8.3 million hours volunteering, as well as working with around 54,000 non-profits.
The company is also donating $20 million more to public schools in San Francisco and Oakland.
Benioff says this is the most sustainable Dreamforce yet, with 74% of structures recycled or re-used.
He adds that Salesforce is the 3rd largest software company in the world – except in Japan, where it is #2.
“We’re going to have nothing but fun times over the next few days,” Benioff says, thanking everyone with the traditional Mahalo.
“We’ve been on these stages now for 25 years…there’s a lot of good days, and a lot of bad days…but we are deeply grateful for you,” he tells his employees.
After a brief introduction – and some music from none other than Dave Matthews, it’s time for the main event.
Following an intro video narrated by future Dreamfroce keynoter Matthew McConaghey, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff takes to the stage to rapturous applause from an adoring crowd.
As is tradition, we have the usual Hawaiian welcome – a very spiritual start to what will be a very tech-heavy morning…
We’re seated and ready for the keynote, and it’s a typically Salesforce-y start to the date – ukelele music, Trailblazers in bright gold blazers, and Disney-esque giant mascots welcoming people in (Astro is always our favorite).
Half an hour to go…
Speaking of AI, we’ve already had a look at some of the big news to come out of Dreamforce this morning – the company has released Einstein 1, a supercharged AI platform that brings together data from all your various platforms to create intelligent and useful suggestions.
You can read our full article above, but the launch is a key indicator that AI is going to be a major theme at Dreamforce this year.
Today’s opening keynote is due to kick off at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm BST, and you can follow it live on the Dreamforce website here.
As usual, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff will lead proceeding, but we’re expecting a host of special guests, and for AI to play a central role.
Good morning and welcome to our live blog covering Dreamforce 2023!
Salesforce’s annual conference is always a highlight of the B2B technology calendar, and we’re here in San Francisco to bring you all the news and updates.
So what are we expecting this year? Short answer…AI, and lots of it. Salesforce has always been at the forefront of AI innovation, so we’re expecting a whole heap of AI to help its customers around the world.
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