Dreamforce ’24: The AC Team’s Perspective on the Biggest Salesforce Conference 

What a packed September week Advanced Communities had in San Francisco at the greatest annual Salesforce conference – Dreamforce ’24. Lots of worthwhile insights on the latest Salesforce AI trends were obtained!  

This year, Dreamforce has gathered 45k people in San Francisco – half of the city became Salesforce city with special spots sprinkled across it. At those spots, different meetings, sessions, and gatherings took place. Advanced Communities had quite a lot on its plate: we visited a few Salesforce Dreamforce sessions and met our partners and clients. 

Sure thing, we didn’t come back from the event empty-handed. Our team wants to share its thoughts, findings, and the major highlights of the Dreamforce ’24 in this post. What can we say…AI is going to enrapture the world. Practically, it is already dashing at neck-breaking speed. So read on! 

4 Key Announcements at the Dreamforce ’24

1. Agentforce

As our CEO Stas Dunayev has rightfully put it, Agentforce is a “new, big, shiny thing” in the Salesforce ecosystem. Being a complete hit at Dreamforce and a new Salesforce flagship product, Agentforce is supposed to win our hearts really soon. Is it worth the hype all along?

Agentforce puts AI in the context of CRM. The logic is simple yet amazing:

• You can create apps aka Agents;
• While creating Agents, keep the 5 attributes of an Agent in mind. These are Role – specify Agent topics and instructions, Data – identify what knowledge they can access, Actions – what capabilities they have to interact with users, Guardrails – what they shouldn’t do, and Channel – where they have to work (like Slack, WhatsApp, a website chat);
• Once the Agent is all set, it can interact with your customers completely autonomously, without human support.

According to the demo Salesforce showed at the conference, the idea is as follows. Imagine an ecommerce customer wanting to know details about their order. The business then develops an Agent in its Salesforce org that provides the customer with the information requested. At the backend, there are text fields and an Admin adds descriptions to them. Agentforce becomes available in the upcoming Winter ’25 release on a paid basis. 

On top of it, Salesforce has announced that there will be more than 15 Agentforce Tour events across the US and European cities. Thus, the hype is pretty intense! 

2. Data Cloud 

Data Cloud is an infrastructural Salesforce product comprising the Mulesoft features and robust storage functionality. Being a big investment and a huge Salesforce product, Data Cloud holds its ground steady. What is so special about it? Data Cloud can integrate structured and unstructured data flawlessly, digesting heaps of data in mere seconds. 

In the context of the latest innovations, Data Cloud functionalities include:

• Connecting to external data resources, which makes more unstructured data formats accessible
• Acting as a stand-alone data storage engine 
• Gathering different types of data about a client and bringing it all together in a structured way 

Apparently, the way Data Cloud stores information is beneficial for leveraging it later in sync with AI.

3. Salesforce Foundations

Salesforce Foundations represent a set of features that assemble Sales, Service Marketing, Commerce, and Data Cloud capabilities for every customer at no additional cost. Plus, it has an updated user interface. The main objective behind Salesforce Foundations is to get users a taste of how all these features can operate together and how AI enters the picture. 

4. Nonprofit and Education Cloud 

Before the COVID-19 era, there was much more talk about the nonprofit side of Salesforce. Today, we see a slight decrease in this matter. Nevertheless, Salesforce is still putting a premium on such new products as Nonprofit Cloud and Education Cloud (in active development now). Besides, Salesforce releases new versions of these products quite often. 

How AC Stood Out from the Crowd at Dreamforce ’24 

Advanced Communities has also been in the limelight during Dreamforce ’24! When we attended a couple of sessions, we were proud to see our designs for Experience Cloud demo sites used in the official materials. In the picture below, you can notice our sleek Partner Hub design: 

But that’s the tip of it. Our team was also thrilled to witness the AC project for our client – Appfire – being presented at Dreamforce ’24. On a side note, you can check out the recent success story and watch a webinar we’ve hosted together with Appfire. 

AC Events Timeline During Dreamforce ’24

1. AC x Salesforce Nonprofit Lunch

We just couldn’t miss out on the splendid opportunity to catch up with Salesforce folks amid the Dreamforce rush. VP of Alliances Rebekah Hunter and Sue Ellen Mang – US Sales Director at Advanced Communities – hosted the Advanced Communities x Salesforce Nonprofit Lunch. Their co-host was Nicole Adair from Salesforce. 

The event took place at the picturesque venue of Shelby’s Rooftop. We were able to show the group the ropes of our two flagship products – AC MemberSmart and AC Events Enterprise as well as explain how they operate within the Salesforce platform. To not take our word for it, there is a collage so that you can feel that authentic vibe. Kudos to our amazing hosts and everyone who has joined us!

2. AC x Salesforce PRM (Partner Relationship Management) Lunch 

Our team members, Stas Dunayev (CEO) and Tom Furtney (Managing Partner), also collaborated with Salesforce to organize the PRM Lunch. 

At the event, they had a great engagement with Account Executives and Solution Engineers in Salesforce. It was nice to know that more and more people in the industry are polishing their knowledge of PRM and its enormous potential. And of course, we contribute to the knowledge!

Moreover, Stas and Tom were able to discuss the big picture around Experience Cloud and where the platform is going with the PRM lunch attendees. It was a valuable opportunity for knowledge sharing and connecting.

Recap

The Advanced Communities team feels inspired and thankful for being part of this gigantic Salesforce event. We are already looking forward to visiting other meaningful gatherings in the industry. Speaking of, you can navigate our website to check out events we are attending this autumn. One of them is happening in a few weeks!