You can trust Salesforce to deliver safe and secure AI opportunities – that was the main message from the final day of Dreamforce 2023.
Thursday lacked the landmark product launches of day one, or the celebrity razzmatazz of day two. But it drove home the conference’s big themes, and gave the 40,000-plus attendees a taste of Salesforce’s AI-powered future.
The K2 team has been on the ground at Dreamforce. Here are some highlights of the day-three action, both on and off the main stage:
Remember: it’s no-code and low-code!
Day-by-day, speech by speech, Salesforce’s leaders have fed attendees consistent messages. Case in point: frequent references to Einstein’s no-code and low-code capabilities. These have the potential to “democratize” the development of AI, said Clara Shih, CEO of Salesforce AI, whose session opened up day three of Dreamforce. Shih gave another demo of Einstein Prompt Builder, following Wednesday’s marketing keynote, which also talked about the impact and usability of the tool. Later that morning, Muralidhar Krishnaprasad, EVP of software engineering, explained how the Prompt Builder can easily create more personalized customer outreach emails.
Why the “era of AI” is surprisingly like the 1990s
Salesforce leaders have been keen to stress that AI is still in its infancy, despite progress over the past year. Shih said the “era of AI” is opening up opportunities for businesses, but she also spoke of new ethics and trust challenges similar to those faced in the early days of the internet. “We are with AI where we were in 1999 with the cloud,” Shih added later in the morning session. “This is an exciting, inspiring time.”
Salesforce presents itself as a safe option amid AI trust concerns
Later in the Dreamforce morning, Claire Cheng, senior director for engineering at Salesforce, talked further about trust in AI. It’s been a running theme throughout each day of Dreamforce 2023: speakers highlight emerging problems with trust and then present Salesforce as a safe, trustworthy solution for businesses. Cheng said it’s important to build a trust-based foundation in AI innovation that protects customer data and uses it responsibly. For now, Salesforce is bigging up the capabilities of the Einstein Trust Layer, secure AI architecture that allows teams to use generative AI without compromising customer data.
Dreamforce delegates get glimpse into Salesforce’s AI future
The landmark launches of Einstein 1 and Einstein Copilot dominated day one of Dreamforce. On day three, we got a brief glimpse into the general future direction of Salesforce products. “We’re going to deliver capabilities like summarization, and have deeper, more contextual conversations with your customers,” Alexa Vignone, EVP for sales, told the conference. Salesforce will focus on making things easier for customers by using the capabilities of Copilot, its generative AI assistant. “It’s not just about the products and services we’re building. It’s about how we’re using our ecosystem to build on these,” added Vignone.
Google and Salesforce share a focus on “trust”
Salesforce’s future will also include closer integration between its services and Google Workspace. On Tuesday, Salesforce announced an expansion of its strategic partnership with Google. On Thursday, Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian joined Shih on the stage to tell us more. While some may see the two firms as competitors, Kurian said Google Cloud has similar values to Salesforce when it comes to AI development, particularly a shared focus on trust. In fact, trust is fundamental to the Workspace integration.
From Gucci to Lamborghini: Italian glamour on show at Dreamforce
It didn’t quite match Wednesday’s Foo Fighters gig or Matthew McConaughey’s fireside chat, but Salesforce chose to put two of its more glamourous clients under the spotlight on day three. Gilberto Tosca, chief technology and information officer at Gucci, was on the main stage to discuss the Italian fashion house’s early adoption of AI tools, which are helping “Guccify” its customer messaging. Off stage, Salesforce was promoting how it’s helped another Italian luxury brand, sports car maker Lamborghini, streamline its apps and data.
Weary Dreamforce delegates chill out over breakfast
As Dreamforce wound down on Thursday and attendees started tiring of all things AI, the social side of the conference got more chilled. Breakfasts replaced rock concerts and after-parties. If you just fancied food and networking, you could go for the Conga x Accenture Breakfast, the 10th Anniversary Amplify @DF23 Breakfast, or the BreakfastWithYottaa & ESW. If you wanted a more specific career focus, you could choose from Coffee & Career Advice for Future Revenue Leaders, or the Diving into Data Breakfast.
We hope you enjoyed K2’s daily coverage of Dreamforce 2023. Missed our previous Dreamforce Digests? Read all about day one and day two.
