Dreamforce 2022 live: Salesforce Genie, Slack Canvas and more updates from the keynotes
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The keynote is pretty much wrapping up here. We hear a bit about how customers like Ford and L’Oreal are using Salesforce Genie to optimize their operations, but it doesn’t feel like more feature announcements are on the way.
Then we move on to the press conference, where Benioff and Taylor will answer questions about the updates to the Salesforce platform.
Salesforce Genie is available today, Taylor confirms.
Real-time, real-time, real-time
“We completely redesigned our CRM to enable applications that just weren’t possible before,” says Taylor.
“With Genie, we have added a fundamental new feature: a real-time hyperscale data platform. It’s all about the data; you can inject real-time and historical data to create a single source of truth.”
“This changes the game for CRM. Salesforce Customer 360 is the world’s first real-time CRM.”
ANNOUNCEMENT: Salesforce Genius
Salesforce has detailed what it describes as the “biggest innovation” to come to its CRM and sales enablement platform over the past two decades.
The new addition, Salesforce Genie, is a service designed to bring together customer data typically stored across channels and applications into one multipurpose profile.
Its purpose is to help its users enable a personalized experience for each of their customers, informed by the most complete and current information about previous interactions with that person.
We’ll have more on this later.
Customer 360
Bret Taylor returns to the stage to discuss the new developments in the Customer 360 portfolio.
“I’ve never been more excited about the power of our core platform,” he says. “The pace of innovation has never been faster.”
There are also 15 new Salesforce integrations for Slack, specific to different products in Customer 360 (e.g. Sales Cloud for Slack, Flow in Slack, etc.).
ANNOUNCEMENT: Video conferencing is coming to Slack Huddles
Slack also announced that it is expanding its makeshift conferencing feature, Huddles, which now supports video conferencing.
Designed to simulate casual office conversations, the Huddles feature moves away from its original audio-only format and into something more complete. Not only will users now be able to enable video, but they will also benefit from multi-person screen sharing, emoji reactions, and more.
For more details, click on here.
ANNOUNCEMENT: Slack Canvas
Slack has lifted the lid on a major new addition to its platform, which it says could be a way to address some common customer bottlenecks.
Slack Canvas offers employees a new way to collect, organize and share data, using permanent and highly customizable information panels. These so-called “canvases” are linked to each channel by default and can be manually created for one-off projects or events.
Not only can users embed contextual information, data, and multimedia content in canvases, but they can also perform everyday tasks in situ, thanks to the third-party integrations already available in Slack.
“Canvas will help people be more productive in their digital headquarters by giving them a surface that makes it easier to access the information they need to do their jobs,” Yehoshua said. TechRadar Pro before the show.
“We hope that people will be able to onboard employees faster, close deals faster and resolve incidents faster by having that information more easily available in a consistent location in this persistent layer.”
Read our full article for more information here.
slack time
It’s time to hear about Slack, which was acquired by Salesforce last year, and the new integrations between the collaboration platform and the Customer 360 portfolio.
Benioff invites Slack’s Chief Product Officer Tamar Yehoshua onstage to discuss the latest developments.
A trillion trees
Separately, Benioff provides an update on the company’s plan to plant a trillion trees to help offset the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere.
“We are now confident that we will reach this target by 2030,” he announces.
ANNOUNCEMENT: Salesforce Carbon Credit Marketplace
Salesforce has announced the launch of a carbon credit marketplace with the ambition to pave the way to net zero emissions for customers.
The new Net Zero Marketplace would make carbon credit purchasing easier and more transparent, as well as connect buyers with pre-screened carbon credit providers whose projects are audited by third-party rating agencies.
The marketplace is not designed to replace organic resources to reduce emissions (such as minimizing travel or locating supply chains), but rather to complement existing projects.
Benioff continues with the kinds of values that matter to both Salesforce and its customers: trust, customer success, innovation, equality and sustainability.
“We want to help you connect with your customers in a whole new way, by building a brand new version of Customer 360,” he says. “You’ll see that new version today.”
“This is a new day for Dreamforce,” says Benioff. “We need to face this new day with a beginner’s mind, asking ourselves what we really want? What’s important to us?”
The crowd looks as stunned as I do, but I guess this is going somewhere…
Here we go
Marc Benioff and Bret Taylor, co-CEOs of Salesforce, take the stage to kick off the 20th edition of Dreamforce, with some awkward high-fives and fist punches for the crowd along the way.
The title of the keynote: The Great Reunion, marking the first personal Dreamforce since before the pandemic.
Huh, Lenny Kravitz is there too, with a rendition of Fly away. A classic…
A Hawaiian Blessing
This is my first Dreamforce, so I didn’t expect the show to start with a Hawaiian blessing. But I’m told this is a Salesforce tradition.
Primed and ready
TechRadar Pro has navigated the mosh pit outside the Moscone Center and the multitude of security checkpoints to reach the main hall, ready for the opening keynote (from 10 a.m. PT / 6 p.m. BST).
So which comes first today?
As usual, this morning’s keynote will be led by Salesforce co-CEOs Marc Benioff and Bret Taylor.
Dreamforce’s opening keynote is always a sight to behold, often featuring celebrity cameos and musical performances alongside the latest tech updates and news.
If you want to tune in to watch online there is a link here (opens in new tab).
Welcome to Dreamforce 2022
We’re live in San Francisco for the first day of Dreamforce 2022, and this reporter will battle through the jet lag to bring you the latest product announcements, as well as coverage of key keynote sessions.
We’ll also hear directly from spokespersons responsible for the various branches of the Salesforce Customer 360 portfolio, who are no doubt eager to share what they’ve been working on.
Over the course of the three-day event, we’ll be updating this blog with everything you need to know about the show, so bookmark this page or stay tuned.
In the meantime, here’s some of the latest news coming out of Salesforce: