Dreamforce 2023 live blog – all the Salesforce news and updates from day one

Metavives September 13, 2023

We’re live in San Francisco for Dreamforce 2023, the annual conference hosted by CRM company Salesforce.

Over the course of the three-day show, we’re expecting Salesforce to unveil a range of product updates, with AI undoubtedly set to take center stage.

Day one saw Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff take to the stage to reveal a host of new announcements and release, including the following:

Good morning and welcome to our live blog covering Dreamforce 2023!

Salesforce’s annual conference is always a highlight of the B2B technology calendar, and we’re here in San Francisco to bring you all the news and updates.

So what are we expecting this year? Short answer…AI, and lots of it. Salesforce has always been at the forefront of AI innovation, so we’re expecting a whole heap of AI to help its customers around the world.

Today’s opening keynote is due to kick off at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm BST, and you can follow it live on the Dreamforce website here.

As usual, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff will lead proceeding, but we’re expecting a host of special guests, and for AI to play a central role.

Speaking of AI, we’ve already had a look at some of the big news to come out of Dreamforce this morning – the company has released Einstein 1, a supercharged AI platform that brings together data from all your various platforms to create intelligent and useful suggestions.

You can read our full article above, but the launch is a key indicator that AI is going to be a major theme at Dreamforce this year.

Dreamforce 2023 — (Image credit: Future / Mike Moore)

We’re seated and ready for the keynote, and it’s a typically Salesforce-y start to the date – ukelele music, Trailblazers in bright gold blazers, and Disney-esque giant mascots welcoming people in (Astro is always our favorite).

Half an hour to go…

As is tradition, we have the usual Hawaiian welcome – a very spiritual start to what will be a very tech-heavy morning…

After a brief introduction – and some music from none other than Dave Matthews, it’s time for the main event.

Following an intro video narrated by future Dreamfroce keynoter Matthew McConaghey, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff takes to the stage to rapturous applause from an adoring crowd.

“We’re going to have nothing but fun times over the next few days,” Benioff says, thanking everyone with the traditional Mahalo.

“We’ve been on these stages now for 25 years…there’s a lot of good days, and a lot of bad days…but we are deeply grateful for you,” he tells his employees.

Benioff says this is the most sustainable Dreamforce yet, with 74% of structures recycled or re-used.

He adds that Salesforce is the 3rd largest software company in the world – except in Japan, where it is #2.

Benioff notes that, “we’re inspired to see business is the greatest platform for change”- with the company still giving 1% of its equity, and contributing 8.3 million hours volunteering, as well as working with around 54,000 non-profits.

The company is also donating $20 million more to public schools in San Francisco and Oakland.

Marc Benioff Dreamforce 2023 — (Image credit: Future / Mike Moore)

Benioff has some very funky cloud-themed sneakers (Converse?) on – he just marched right past us, acting out a story from his school days…

Here we go – it’s time to talk AI.

“We want to help our customers connect with their customers in a whole new way…but we recognise tehcnology is moving faster than ever…this data explosion, this burst of artificial intelligence – it’s like nothing we’ve ever seen before,” Benioff notes.

“This AI revolution is going to change who we are…but it will bring us back to who we are.”

Einstein AI is already incredibly popular, he notes, as Salesforce is already the number one AI platform used around the world.

“Now we have to think about – what are we doing with this technology?”

When it comes to the AI opportunity – “there’s no question that this AI opportunity is going to change everything…or anything,” Benioff notes.

But Benioff recognizes there is an AI trust gap – noting that LLMs can turn toxic very quickly. “We recognise this is a phenomenal opportuniy for the future, some place we all want to work to get to.”

The solution – Einstein 1. “We want to built the trusted AI platform for customer companies,” he notes. Integrated, intelligent, auotmated, Einstein 1 works with low code and no code, built to be open.

“This is our life’s work – this is what we’ve been doing for 25 years,” Benioff notes.

Einstein 1 is open to all the Salesforce family, as Benioff notes it is Trailblazers who will help lead the AI revolution.

This will include major overhauls when it comes to skills training, and Salesforce is also investing $500 million Ventures fund for Einstein 1 innovators.

The AI revolution is a trust revolution, Benioff notes – “we have a very different narratvie when it comes to AI – we are not afraid to say things that other companies are afraid to say.

“Your data is not our product – that’s not what we do here,” he asserts, unlike a lot of other companies.

“Transparency builds trust…We all know what can happen is AI goes wrong – let’s keep it going in the right direction.”

With that, Benioff hands over the mic to Parker Harris, Salesforce co-founder and CTO.

He starts off by talking about how the company is going to keep your data safe – primarily through the new Einstein Trust Layer.

Primarily, this looks to keep information protected from unscrupulous LLMs, as well as keeping it safe from hallucinations or any other toxicity.

“In a way, this AI revolution is actually a data revolution,” Harris notes, “because the AI revolution wouldn’t exist without the power of all that data.”

You need to bring together these “islands of disconnected data” – and Einstein 1 Data Cloud can do this, connecting all your data inside Salesforce, integrating natively with Salesforce metadata.

Harris now digs a little more into Data Cloud – noting that Salesforce is partnering with nearly all top data lake providers to get hold of your data, then harmonizing it and powering it into Data Cloud in real-time.

Basically, Salesforce wants to ensure making sense of your data is easier than ever – and some demos show just how simple bringing together these different sources can be – at least in theory.

Data Cloud is now free to get started, Harris notes, with all Enterprise, Unlimited and Unlimited Plus subscribers.

David Schmaier, president and chief product officer, is next up, and introduces the new Einstein 1 Copilot.

“This is a big, big deal – the data powers the AI, and the AI powers your customer experience,” he notes.

The new tool can provide a huge range of services – from providing sales people with automatically-generated leads documents, or service agents with the latest customer and product information, or marketers with easily-tweakable campaigns – the possibilities seem endless.

Einstein 1 is also coming to Tableau – giving more data to more companies to help them make smarter and better decisions, Schmaier notes.

It’s also coming to Canvas, Slack, MuleSoft and many more – this really could be a game-changer for Salesforce users everywhere.

It’s now time for some customer stories, with commerce giant Williams-Sonoma up first. They’re using Salesforce across the board, creating smarter and more engaging email marketing campaigns via CRM and Einstein Copilot.

Benioff is back, chatting to Laura Alvarez, the CEO of Williams-Sonoma about how the company utilized Salesforce technology.

He also asks her about her dreams for AI – with Alvarez replying that gaining customer trust by adding value is vital.

“The last thing you want to do is hurt the customer experience,” she notes. “When it comes to customers, there has to be nothign artificial about the experience…it has to be completely authentic.”

Benioff just confirmed his swanky sneakers are made by Gucci – another Salesforce customer!

Benioff now turns to the future of AI – and how you can make it successful inside your company.

Patrick Stokes, from Salesforce product and industries marketing, is here to tell us more.

AI is changing everything, right down to how we build apps, Stokes notes – as an AI application offers a new way of thinking and development.

Creating these new apps requires a new set of tools – and for these new AI apps, this is Einstein 1 Copilot Studio.

This helps extend and customize exactly what you need Einstein to do within your business, connecting models and data from a wide range of different sources.

Stokes shows off a demo where additional customized requests can be created and utilized quickly and simply, giving a richer customer experience all round.

“This is an entirely new way to build applications…you are all Einsteins now,” Stokes concludes.

Next up is productivity – and to talk through that, it’s Slack CEO Lidian Jones.

She’s here to show off some new Salesforce integrations that will show off “a brand new user experience”.

The “new Slack” has a number of changes and tweaks, including a number of accessibility upgrades – all with AI at the core.

Among the new features are Slack Lists, a new way to track your work with collaboration at the core.

Launching as a pilot later this year, it can use generative AI to bring together workflows from all your chats, meaning you hopefully shouldn’t miss any key deadlines.

Slack Sales Elevate also promises to use AI to help users save time and boost efficiency – bringing the power of Sales Cloud and Slack together for maximum productivity.

Canvas is also getting an upgrade, with the content generator service now able to pull in all related sales information to help salespeople, marketers and more – making sure they are equipped with everything they need to succeed.

“This is the future of productivity,” she says.

Benioff is back to wrap things up, covering all the main announcements from this morning, and thanking us all for coming.

And that’s a wrap for the opening keynote! We’re off to digest everything we’ve heard, but will be back shortly with the other main keynotes and sessions from the day – thanks for joining us, and see you soon for more Dreamforce 2023 fun.