4 Key Sales Takeaways from Dreamforce 2024, the Biggest AI Event of the Year

4 Key Sales Takeaways from Dreamforce 2024, the Biggest AI Event of the Year

Predictive and generative AI are part of the daily reality for most sales teams, increasing productivity and empowering sellers to do their best work. The future? Autonomous agents.

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We're in the midst of an AI selling revolution, with 81% of sales teams currently investing in AI. But how can sales teams make the most of it, ensuring predictable growth and competitive advantage?

To answer that question, Dreamforce offered a firsthand look at Salesforce's latest AI-powered innovations - including Agentforce, a new collection of autonomous agents that fulfill the promise of AI and human collaboration - and how these, alongside community, power sales success.

Here are the highlights:

Highlight #1: AI is table stakes for sales productivity

As our State of Sales report revealed, AI is everywhere. Roughly four in five sellers use it, and among those that do, 83% saw revenue growth last year.

The question is: Why? The same report revealed some key benefits, echoed by Salesblazers during this year's Dreamforce: Improved data quality and accuracy, reduced manual work, streamlined customer research, lead prioritization, improved forecasting accuracy, and personalization for customers.

We saw this underscored during the Sales Cloud keynote, which showed the time-saving work of Sales AI action, highlighting big-win deal opportunities, automatically transcribing and analyzing sales call, and updating deal records with the latest customer information - all inside Sales Cloud. (This is only a taste of what AI is already doing. Take a deeper dive into Sales Cloud's AI features here.)

Of course, the benefits of AI can only be realized when the data feeding AI models is accurate and complete. Which brings us to…

Highlight #2: Integrated data and simplified tech are the way forward

While there were many AI innovations revealed at Dreamforce this year, the preface was clear: The only way to deliver accurate, impactful AI outputs is to make sure your data is clean and consolidated.

That starts with an integrated tech stack. When you bring the functionality you need onto a single platform, like the Salesforce platform, you bring data into one place. That means whatever AI features you roll out will have access to the most complete customer information available. Clean, complete data = high-quality AI outputs.

Even better, this consolidation makes your sellers' lives so much easier. No more swivel-chairing or tab juggling.

We chatted with some top-tier sales leaders at Dreamforce about this critical piece of AI use. They shared examples of consolidation in action, and how it's improved seller performance. Watch a recording here.

Highlight #3: Humans + autonomous agents = the new formula for growth

First, we saw predictive AI take the scene. Sales forecasters were giddy, watching artificial intelligence comb through heaps of data to find trends and tell us the future. Then, generative AI launched, creating emails from simple prompts and call scripts from simple outlines.

Now, it's time for autonomous AI.

Welcome, Agentforce. This Salesforce-wide innovation, revealed at the main Dreamforce keynote, is a collection of autonomous Agents across the Customer 360 platform.

What are these fully customizable Agents used for? Think of them in two distinct categories:

• "Complete a job for me" (Autonomous): Autonomous Agents can be set up to perform pipeline-driving tasks entirely independent of a human salesperson, like qualifying leads and sending sales outreach messages.
• "Help me complete a job" (Assistive): Agents can also serve as valuable companions throughout the day-to-day grind of working in sales. An Agent can train salespeople with personalized sales coaching, or answer technical questions on the fly directly in the flow of work.

For sellers, two Sales Agents were unveiled that will improve productivity dramatically:

Agentforce SDR. This prospecting Agent can qualify inbound leads using criteria, permissions, and guardrails set sales teams. For example, a seller might ask Agentforce SDR to send along only those leads with a potential deal value of $10k with a likelihood of closing in the next quarter. Agentforce SDR engages prospects via SMS, email, or their preferred channel and asks questions to qualify them according to preset criteria. Once qualified, leads are sent to sellers to continue the conversation and close.

Agentforce Sales Coach. We've heard it many times (including from our State of Sales report respondents): Managers don't have enough time to coach their reps on sales calls, and sellers don't have enough time to practice calls with their peers. In fact, roleplaying is one of the least commonly used enablement tactics. Agentforce Sales Coach to the rescue. This new autonomous Agent can roleplay sales calls with reps, providing personalized and objective feedback. How does it make these roleplays realistic? By pulling real-life objections, questions, and conversation details from past deals in Sales Cloud.

These are just a few examples of the fully customizable AI Agents available within the Salesforce platform - and they represent just a small fraction of the many unique Sales AI use cases to come in the near future. (Watch the Sales Cloud keynote for more on the Sales Agents available now.)

Highlight #4: Community will always be the beating heart of sales

Is AI the future of sales? Yes. But not without people.

In the spring of 2023, we launched the Salesblazer Community. We knew - from conversations with customers, prospects, and sellers we admire - that community (+ technology) was needed to help sales professionals learn, grow, and succeed.

So we delivered. We created and curated the best sales content anywhere. We offered opportunities to network and connect - from in-person gatherings at World Tours and Dreamforce, to virtual Coffee Chats and AMAs. We delivered sneak peeks of product innovations. And we listened while you shared your vision for this fast-growing community.

In a relatively short time, we've grown to almost 10,000 members, representing every conceivable sales role (from SDR to CRO), countless industries, and now, countries across the globe. (Just announced at Dreamforce: We're adding new channels in our Slack Community for our French and German #Salesblazers.)

We even had the chance to give the much-deserved spotlight to leading #Salesblazers at the Sales Cloud keynote this Dreamforce - applauding THNKS, Veeam, and Accenture for being models of #Salesblazer values.

The best part? We're just getting started. More innovation, more engagement, more fun is coming. If you're not a part of the Community yet, you can learn more here and join. (Bonus: You can see photos and videos of #Salesblazers favorite moments at Dreamforce - and all of our events.)

Dreamforce TL;DR: AI + humans is the future of sales

AI was, perhaps not surprisingly, the biggest talking point at this year's star-studded Dreamforce. But the AI revolution isn't just about new technology. It's about how humans, empowered by technology, can grow predictably, sustainably, and safely. That's the future - and Salesforce is leading the way.

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Amber Armstrong is an experienced technology CMO who currently leads marketing for Sales Cloud, and previously led marketing at LivePerson and several AI-infused businesses at IBM. She's dedicated to both the art and science of marketing and has a passionate curiosity for the uncharted. Her... Read More personal mantra: Focused. Passionate. Kind. Armstrong lives in Austin, TX with her husband and two step-children.