Salesforce Dreamforce 2024 - Agentforce and Ethical AI Take the Stage

The Star of the Show; Agentforce

The darling boy of Dreamforce 2024 was undoubtably Agentforce, Salesforce’s latest chess move in the artificial intelligence game. Agentforce is an advanced AI platform designed to empower businesses to deploy intelligent agents capable of handling a myriad of tasks across sales, service, marketing, and beyond. This platform leverages Salesforce’s robust Data Cloud, ensuring seamless integration and enhanced AI-driven operations.

“ Einstein Copilot is assistive and can take 15 to 25 actions and then is gated, because if you enable any more actions, the likelihood of hallucinations grows. However, our customers wanted something more proactive than this, where they could add more action and reasoning. So, we upgraded the brain — the planner capability — of these assistants, increasing their complexity and the number of topics and actions they could take, putting additional instructions in at every level. This created a huge upgrade in capability which is now available as Agentforce. ”

Gary Brandeleer Senior Director of Product Management & Salesforce AI

It was only last year that the world was introduced to Salesforce Copilot, and some might be ask how it differs from Agentforce. From what it seems, Agentforce is a far more advanced platform that allows companies to create “autonomous AI agents”. These agents can perform more complex, cross-system tasks and operate with greater autonomy, whereas Copilot is more user-driven and task-specific. So while they both serve different purposes, it’s no doubt that Agentforce will be a pretty significant upgrade in terms of functionality for complex processes.

Data Cloud: The Salesforce Central Nervous System

It’s no surprise that Salesforce’s Data Cloud continues to evolve as the cornerstone of its behemoth platform. Processing an astounding 767 trillion (no, that’s not a typo) records monthly, Data Cloud now supports all Salesforce Customer 360 apps as well as Tableau, providing a unified data foundation that fuels AI innovations.

Latest features

• Unstructured Data Support: Native processing of audio and video content, including webinars and calls.
• Semantic Data Model: Ensures consistent data interpretation across Agentforce Agents and human users.
• Enhanced Search Capabilities: Improved search that factors in customer context for quicker information discovery.
• Real-Time Data Activations: Enables instant responses to changing customer needs.
• Enhanced Security and Governance: Robust features to safeguard operations and prevent unnecessary data exposure.

By positioning Data Cloud as the “heartbeat” of the Salesforce platform, it seems that Salesforce continues to underscore the importance of unified data in driving AI and machine learning initiatives. These enhancements not only improve data handling and security but also ensure that AI tools like Agentforce can operate more effectively, delivering actionable insights and personalized experiences.

AI-Enhanced Collaboration with Slack

Another cool announcement at Dreamforce was the integration of Agentforce with Slack. The new Agentforce for Slack feature allow humans and AI agents to collaborate seamlessly within Slack channels, eliminating the need to switch between applications. So, if you’re a Slack user that’s always switching to the Salesforce screen, you’re gonna love this one.

New enhancements

• Smart UI for Agents: Slack’s user interface now interacts directly with Agentforce agents and third-party agents from companies like Adobe and Anthropic.
• Enhanced Features: Introduction of huddle notes, simplified automation, improved search, and a variety of templates for channels, canvases, lists, and automated workflows.

Salesforce Ventures’ $500 Million AI Fund

The AI war is on! And, in a bold move to accelerate AI innovation, Salesforce Ventures announced the launch of a new $500 million AI Fund. By the way, this brings their total AI investments to an impressive $1 billion over the past 18 months. The goal of the fund aims to support AI startups that are pushing the boundaries of technology. Because... why not?

Notable Investments: The fund has already backed prominent AI companies like Anthropic, Cohere, Runway, TogetherAI, Mistral AI, and Hugging Face.

Bridging the AI Skills Gap with Free Training

One thing we all know already; AI innovation is currently growing exponentially. Of course, that growth rate naturally leaves a gap in knowledge and expertise in the space. To address this incredible growing demand for AI expertise, Salesforce announced a $50 million investment in AI skills development, offering free AI training and certifications through its Trailhead platform until the end of 2025. Additionally, Salesforce will provide in-person training sessions at its San Francisco headquarters and other global locations. Som you’ve got no excuses now!

Goals of the pledge

• Train 100,000 more students: By making AI education accessible, Salesforce aims to equip a larger workforce with the necessary skills to thrive in an AI-driven landscape.
• Community and employee development: Enhancing skills not just for external users but also for Salesforce’s own employees and community members.

As AI continues to reshape industries, the demand for skilled professionals grows exponentially. Salesforce’s initiative ensures that businesses have access to a pool of trained individuals who can effectively leverage AI tools, driving innovation and maintaining competitive advantage.

Salesforce Foundations: Comprehensive Suite for Enterprise Users

Salesforce isn’t only for big companies with a huge budget, and Salesforce is helping to get more people onboard. Towards the end of Dreamforce, they introduced us to Salesforce Foundations, a bundled package offering free access to Sales, Service, Marketing, Commerce, and Data Cloud features for customers using the enterprise editions of Sales Cloud or Service Cloud. This suite comes with a refreshed user interface and is also set to include Agentforce agents later in the year.

Notes

• Regional Availability: The package is subject to regional availability.
• Usage Limits: Includes 2,000 email sends per month, 10,000 Data Cloud segmentation and activation credits, and applicable transaction fees for Commerce Pay Now.
• Enhanced UI: Provides a more intuitive and user-friendly experience for enterprise users.

The Future of Enterprise AI: Ethical and Collaborative

One thing we noted from Dreamforce 2024 was dedicated to discussing the future of Enterprise AI. Salesforce took care to mention, more than once, the balance between technological advancements and ethical considerations. At Plauti, we believe this is something that should be on the forefront of all AI development at all times. It’s somewhat comforting to see Salesforce highlight some of AI’s imperfections, such as hallucinations. They also discussed the evolving role of humans in overseeing AI operations, and the striving towards getting the right balance here.

Takeaways

• Continuous Improvement: Tools are essential for detecting and refining AI inaccuracies.
• Human Oversight: Humans will continue to play a crucial role in providing feedback and making critical decisions.
• Adoption Strategies: Integrating AI agents into existing workflows and addressing initial skepticism are vital for successful AI adoption.