Dreamforce 2024: Product News
The Cloud Giants team attended Dreamforce virtually this year. While nothing quite compares to the in-person experience, we found ways to stay connected and enjoy the excitement from afar. Some of us streamed live content on Salesforce+, others followed the hype on news feeds, and many explored the Dreamforce Session Catalog.
Were you lucky enough to attend in person? Join the conversation on LinkedIn and share your key takeaways with us!
Missed the virtual sessions and felt a bit of FOMO? Don’t worry, there are still plenty of learning opportunities! The Dreamforce Session Catalog offers several sessions available on Salesforce+ to stream on-demand, along with Einstein Summaries for other key highlights. You can filter by topic to dive into sessions that interest you most.
Regardless of how you tuned in, the amount of information shared is overwhelming! To help you cut through the noise, we’ve compiled some of our favorite learnings below.
Agentforce
Agentforce was Salesforce’s key announcement at this year’s Dreamforce. With AI dominating conversations since 2023, Salesforce showcased its own AI-driven suite of products and features.
Einstein Copilot has evolved into Agentforce, which Salesforce calls the "third wave of AI," following predictive AI and copilots. This upgrade enables Salesforce's AI to learn, reason, and take action.
So what is Agentforce, you might ask?
Salesforce wants to redefine agents beyond the traditional Service Cloud Agents. Now, they envision autonomous assistants that can be set up across various clouds within the Salesforce ecosystem—like SDR Agents, Sales Coach, and Campaign Agent. Admins can configure these agents using clicks, not code, by assigning them a purpose, providing relevant data, setting goals, defining guardrails for what the agents can or cannot do, and deploying them across channels like websites, Slack, or a Salesforce org.
Agentforce will be generally available on October 25, 2024, but pricing details remain unclear. A recent Salesforce press release stated the cost would start at $2 per conversation, though specifics are still unknown.
Only time will tell whether Salesforce’s big bet on Agentforce will pay off, but the company isn’t shy about making large investments in this space.
Slack AI
While introduced throughout the year, Salesforce highlighted some exciting new Slack features aimed at boosting productivity! At Cloud Giants, Slack is an essential communication tool, and we prioritize simplicity and effective change management within the platform. Here are some standout features we're eager to explore.
Huddle Notes: Love hopping on a huddle to knock something out quickly? Us too! Huddle will be even more powerful now with AI that will take and post notes for you.
Auto Leave Inactive Channels: In too many slack channels? Overwhelmed by it? Slack AI can help you auto-leave channels where you have not been active in some time.
File Summaries: With Slack AI, you can hover over a file shared in Slack and see a summary of what the file contains.
Slack AI is available on certain plans or as a paid add-on.
Revenue Cloud
Revenue Lifecycle Management (RLM) has been officially renamed to Revenue Cloud in all Salesforce documentation and product references. While the term "RLM" may still appear in some resources during the transition, this rebranding does not affect any existing functionality.
Not sure what RLM was? Well, it’s the new Revenue Cloud. It brings CPQ functionality right into core objects within Salesforce. We found this session, available on demand on Salesforce+, particularly helpful: Beyond CPQ: Drive Success with the New Revenue Cloud.
This session shows off the core components that make the new Revenue Cloud offering: Product Catalog, Contract Management, Dynamic Revenue Orchestrator, and Customer Asset Lifecycle Management.
If you are looking to get a bit more advanced, this session, Did You Know Revenue Cloud Could Do That?, is for you. This goes beyond the typical quoting needs and ventures into selling in partner communities and leveraging AI within Contracts.
Have the ‘old’ Salesforce CPQ and are wondering where that fits in? You are not alone. Both products currently exist, but it’s an either-or conversation. If you’d like to learn more, reach out to one of our experts. This is an area in which we specialize and we continue to keep a close eye on all the updates.
‘Free’ Stuff from Salesforce (No Swag Included)!
If you’ve ever attended Dreamforce, you know the free swag is always plentiful. While we didn’t snag any Astro Agentforce goodies this time, we did learn about some exciting upgrades and freebies Salesforce is rolling out for its customers.
Salesforce is providing premium AI courses and AI certifications for free until the end of 2025. Recently, a series of new AI-specific Trails, Modules and Projects was released on Trailhead. Salesforce has also begun providing AI training spaces in some of its offices.
If your company uses Enterprise Edition (EE) - you can now upgrade to Salesforce Foundations at no additional cost. Foundations brings together features from multiple clouds (Sales, Service, Marketing, Commerce, and Data) giving you a unified view of the customer and enabling you to create AI-powered experiences across every customer touchpoint.
Try out Agentforce: Although the full details are yet to be released, Agentforce Agents will be available to try in Salesforce Foundations later this year.
Author Bio
Alex Kenney is the Director of Consulting and Customer Success at Cloud Giants. With over 10 years of experience on the Salesforce platform, she excels at providing strategic thought leadership while also getting hands-on with building innovative solutions.
She holds 7 Salesforce certifications and specializes in Revenue and Experience Cloud. While she’s not Salesforcing, you’re most likely to find her at her favorite yoga studio or having fun at a park with her family.
Connect with Alex on LinkedIn.
