Each year, Salesforce hosts one of the world’s biggest tech conferences in San Diego. This year, Dreamforce had over 40,000 in-person attendees, and millions more watching online. There were over 1,500 sessions, making Dreamforce the largest AI conference in the world.

As you may imagine, Salesforce released a lot of new information during the 3-day conference. You can find plenty of info on the Salesforce site, even if you didn’t attend. If you don’t feel like poring over blog posts for hours, though, we’ve broken down the five most important announcements in this one handy guide.

First, we should note that AI isn’t going anywhere, and Salesforce is primarily focusing on drawing AI and the Data Cloud together so they work seamlessly as one. In fact, the keynote tagline was “Now everyone is an Einstein — Data + AI + CRM + Trust.” That pretty much sums up the event. Below, we go into a bit more detail about what that means for Salesforce customers going forward.

1. Einstein 1: Salesforce Relaunch with AI

Einstein 1 is indisputably the biggest announcement from Dreamforce this year. It’s a relaunched version of the existing Salesforce platform with—you guessed it—AI as the primary focus.

AI is hugely popular for good reason, but it’s still a bit clunky when it comes to data. Salesforce plans to solve this problem with Einstein 1, connecting data wherever possible while keeping the customer’s trust.

Einstein 1 uses Copilot, which is the existing user interface loaded as a side panel. Salesforce users and their customers are already familiar with this interface, and they can interact using everyday language. It’s like a human conversation but utilizes AI.

Copilot also provides recommendations so users can decide how they would like to proceed. It’s a seamless process that will help automate numerous tasks without diminishing the customer experience.

2. AI Copilot Studio Gives You Control

If you’re wondering how this works in real-time, you’ll be interested in Copilot Studio. This includes three separate components: Prompt Builder, Skills Builder, and Model Builder. These systems work together to give admins control over processes and user productivity. Using Copilot Studio, you can determine exactly how AI helps your organization and determine which users have access to specific functions.

Use Prompt Builder to build your prompt templates, specify the way prompts use Salesforce data, and ultimately put those prompts to work with your actual customers. Best of all, it’s quick and easy to do!

Skills Builder gives you control over your Salesforce users. You can grant or restrict access to AI functionality by limiting or expanding process capabilities for each user. Where one user may have one set of outcomes for a specific process, another user may have a completely different set of outcomes.

You can also choose the AI models you want with Model Builder. The options include Salesforce’s proprietary models as well as those of numerous partners, including Databricks, Anthropic, Cohere, Vertex IX, or OpenAI.

3. AI Flow With Data Cloud

Salesforce Flow is an existing automation component that’s getting a bit of an overhaul.

Thanks to Einstein 1, Salesforce Flow now works with Data Cloud. Each Flow is triggered by an action—like a change in data. Because Data Cloud uses real-time data from multiple systems, Flows now streamline tasks, allowing users to prioritize more important projects.

Flow uses Data Realms, which are segments that consolidate data to provide analytics and provide insights to your marketing team—all within Data Cloud.

Using Data Cloud, Salesforce has also released 26 AI capabilities between Commerce Cloud and Marketing Cloud, with an additional 25 (or more) coming by the end of 2024.

4. Deeper Slack Integration Enhances Communication

Many Salesforce users will be excited to hear about the new Slack features.

Slack Lists gives team members the ability to prioritize tasks and keep track of their task list. The feature uses AI and disparate Slack conversations to create one seamless workflow. This keeps your most important deadlines front and center so you never fall behind.

Salesforce also introduced Slack Sales Elevate to make the user experience even more efficient. This system streamlines tasks using AI, Sales Cloud, and Slack, saving users even more time and energy that can be better utilized elsewhere.

5. Data Graphs Showcase AI Data Relationships

As you are creating prompts in Prompt Builder, you may realize that it’s difficult to keep track of all the data that Einstein is using. Likewise, Skills Builder can get somewhat complicated when you don’t have a way to visualize the data. That’s where Data Graphs come in.

Data Graphs are part of the Data Cloud, allowing users to actually see the relationships between data, even if the data comes from disparate sources or requires multiple layers.

Perhaps more importantly, you can trace data and customize relationships using a drag-and-drop feature to make things simple. This not only saves time, but it also helps improve accuracy, ensuring the system is using the exact data field you want for each application.

Final Thoughts on Salesforce Dreamforce ‘23

In addition to these exciting announcements, Salesforce is also expected to bring an additional 18 million jobs over the next few years. Additionally, the company is fully aware of the ethical responsibility it has to utilize data with integrity. The Salesforce Tenets of Trusted, Ethical, and Humane AI state that “Your data isn’t our product. You control access to your data. We prioritize accurate, verifiable results. Our product policies protect human rights. We advance responsible AI globally. Transparency builds trust.” Coupled with their devotion to sustainability, you can rest assured that Salesforce is a trustworthy company with innovative AI applications that can help your business scale and streamline processes ethically.

While this guide gives you a great overview of the key takeaways from Dreamforce 2023, it can’t provide a full guide to all that Salesforce has to offer. CLOUDSTREET helps you optimize your Salesforce solutions so you get the absolute most from its features. We’ve implemented B2B stores for manufacturers in every industry, from industrial to IT services to consumer goods. Contact us to schedule a meeting or have a quick chat about how we can help your business utilize all the features that Salesforce offers, now and in the future.