Activating AI for a better Salesforce ROI

Dreamforce 2024 Recap

We just wrapped up a great Dreamforce 2024 – celebrity presence, a great concert, networking, partying, and so many announcements! As we get ready to re-start our daily routines, I wanted to share some of my learnings and observations.

Agentforce, Agentforce, Agentforce!

On AI front, Salesforce took a massive leap forward with their exciting announcement of the Agentforce. Simply put, Agentforce enables enterprises to create autonomous agents across different functions to drive complex tasks.

The key promise here is rapid deployment. Salesforce conducted numerous sessions, hands-on workshops, and client meetings to ensure that Agentforce stayed on everyone’s mind in every conversation.

Broadly speaking, the Agentforce framework involves

  • Atlas, the reasoning engine that provides the intelligent execution to enable the significant decision-making power to execute complex tasks.
  • Agent Builder, which enables build-out using existing Salesforce tools, automation, and APIs.
  • A stronger Partner Network: Salesforce announced strategic partnerships to extend agent-building capabilities.

Atlas – Powering Agentforce

Atlas, an upgraded AI copilot, is the brain behind Agentforce. The key to executing complex tasks is the ability to understand end-users objectives, then create/execute plans autonomously.

The key is to go beyond recommending action and actually taking that action in ways that are aligned with customer’s preferred channels. This requires high-quality data, with Data Cloud providing the foundation. Net-net? Atlas pushes forward Data Cloud’s real-time data insights to achieve smarter, faster decisions and actions.

A billion-dollar commitment to AI

Salesforce is setting the pace with a huge investment commitment, and is challenging partners, customers, and trailblazers to run with it if they want to capitalize on this opportunity.

  • Salesforce has opened their first AI center in London, with many more to follow in Chicago, Tokyo, Sydney, and other major cities. These centers will foster collaboration between experts, partners, and customers.
  • Salesforce Ventures has always played a crucial role in aligning the partner ecosystem with Salesforce vision. To complement the $50 million allocated to AI workforce upskilling, Salesforce is also making strategic investments in many companies which share their commitment to trust and ethical AI development.

Strengthening the Data Backbone through Data Cloud

After its stellar launch in Dreamforce 2023, Salesforce’s Data Cloud is now the backbone for its AI-powered solutions. Dreamforce 2024 involved some major updates:

  • Now Data Cloud can process unstructured data: ability to support native video and audio processing lets businesses analyze data and find actionable insights in calls, voicemails, and more.
  • Many keynotes covered the 50 new pre-built connectors, for a total of over 200 now available. Integration options are expanding rapidly, helping businesses seamlessly connect to more data sources.
  • Sub-second real-time capabilities: Data Cloud can now process data—from ingestion to activation—in under a second, enabling faster decision-making and customer engagement.

Taken together, these developments help drive performance and scalability for businesses that need to manage massive amounts of unstructured data.

Takeaways

In Dreamforce 2024, Salesforce clearly demonstrated how they continue to push the boundaries of AI and automation, bringing innovative solutions and pushing everyone in Ohana to be innovative.

Their main message is one of faster time to value. With some years-long AI projects swallowing incredible amounts of budget, Agentforce can utilize what your organization has already built to launch with speed and control. They clearly demonstrated it by building 10,000 agents during Dreamforce 2024.

To learn more about how to leverage this level of momentum for your enterprise, let Impaqtive (An Infogain company) help. DM me to book some time with us.

About the Author

Praveen Desai

Praveen Desai

Praveen Desai is the Co-Studio Lead for Salesforce at Infogain. Previously he was the co-founder and CEO of Impaqtive, an Infogain company and led multiple transformational initiatives for clients with Salesforce solutions. In his career spanning over 30 years, Praveen held a variety of leadership roles building and scaling billion-dollar practices. He was named one of Computerworld’s Premier 100 Technology leaders and many programs he led were included in the CIO 100, InformationWeek 250 list of honorees.