Dreamforce ‘24: AI agents, Data Cloud and Heroku
If Dreamforce made one thing clear, it’s that AI is everywhere — but it’s only as good as the data feeding it.
The statistics speak for themselves. At least 30% of GenAI projects will be abandoned after proof of concept by the end of 2025, owing to poor data quality, increased costs, and unclear business value.
A LOT of companies come to me with similar problems, and I keep repeating the same sentiment. Without well structured, relevant data, the use cases for AI are limited and won’t be truly effective.
But with the right foundation and data management strategy, AI can be pretty impressive. And Dreamforce 24’ was a true testament to exactly that.
Here’s my roundup of the most impactful announcements and news from Dreamforce ‘24.
Salesforce unveils Agentforce — A practical use case for GenAI
It looks like we’ve got our first, next-generational use case in the form of Salesforce’s new Agentforce platform. With Agentforce, front-office teams can build, customise, and deploy their own AI-powered assistants quickly, with low-code tools.
These agents can fulfil key, specialised roles, from supporting marketers as they build campaigns, to engaging leads on behalf of the sales team, and acting as service agents who can resolve cases in natural language.
While it’s easy to dismiss this as just another glorified chatbot, if Salesforce makes good on its promises, Agentforce could become an entirely different beast. These agents are grounded in your Salesforce data, so they should provide an accurate experience that’s head and shoulders above the standard chatbots we’re used to.
Is this the next frontier for AI? Only time will tell. But this isn’t automation for the sake of automation. Done right, Agentforce will empower teams to work more strategically and lighten the load so they can focus on higher-touch, more complex work.
My advice? The devil’s in the data. To ensure your organisation is ready for AgentForce, you need to first have clean, accessible data that’s accurate and organised. By unifying your data, you can create a solid base for this new technology — and set yourself up for success when it lands.
Salesforce Data Cloud gets harder, better, faster, stronger
Speaking of data, Dreamforce featured three minor announcements for Data Cloud that speak to ongoing improvements in performance and scalability.
While they might seem insignificant on the surface, together they work in tandem to give organisations a pretty sizeable boost in speed, support, and overall user-experience. Data Cloud underpins almost every Salesforce cloud product, so in my opinion, any upgrades can have a huge impact.
Here’s the three improvements in a nutshell:
- Unstructured data support: Native processing is now available for video and audio content like webinars, demos, and calls. Now, unstructured data can be analysed to surface new insights that were previously inaccessible.
- Even more pre-built connectors: There are 50 new pre-built connectors launching, bringing the total up to over 200. A handy way to shorten development time and provide customers with native integrations instantly out-of-the-box.
- Faster and faster processing: Data Cloud now works even faster across its processes, down to the sub-second. A significant boost that can speed up everything from data ingestion to activation.
Heroku + Data Cloud for unification and customisation
At Dreamforce, I was lucky enough to join a panel discussion on combining Heroku and Data Cloud to unlock the true potential of customer data.
While Data Cloud excels at unifying data across various sources to create comprehensive customer profiles, it often struggles to manage domain-specific logic and complex integrations — especially if customers interact and transact differently.
Heroku can support these tailored transactions by offering a custom development platform for combining Salesforce data from multiple systems. Through Heroku Connect, you can set up a bi-directional sync with your Salesforce CRM. This means you can access the CRM data directly through a database connection and transform and process the data in whatever format you want.
In short, Data Cloud and Heroku combine to create the gold standard of customer records.
My biggest takeaway: data is the foundation for AI — and great customer experience
If Dreamforce taught me anything, it’s that these new innovations, developments, and platforms are going to be more data hungry than ever. And that means organisations need a data management strategy to lay the groundwork for these experiences to thrive.
Let's Talk!
__________