Salesforce Innovation Day 2024
On October 23rd we had the opportunity and privilege to attend Salesforce Innovation Day Stockholm. It was truly a day full of energy, networking and innovation. The opening keynote was extremely inspiring and showcased how real and “hands-on” Agentforce is.
Very interesting customer stories were shared, including OpenTable and Saks, making it clear that Agentforce is an innovation that can be used to deploy agents already now. The demonstration that followed showcased how Agentforce can work with both structured and unstructured data thanks to the foundation of Data Cloud, Zero Copy and RAG.
What Is Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG)?
RAG is an AI technique that allows companies to automatically embed their most current and relevant proprietary data directly into their LLM prompt. And we are not just talking about structured data like a spreadsheet or a relational database. We mean retrieving all available data, including unstructured data: emails, PDFs, chat logs, social media posts, and other types of information that could lead to a better AI output.
With the help of semantic search, data graphs and hybrid search we can retrieve the data. With the help of structured data grounding and unstructured retrievers we can customize and augment AI prompts, that can be generated with both built-in and custom prompts.
The Evolvement of AI
Taking Sales use cases as our foundation, we can summarize the AI evolvement from 2016 until today. Predictive AI, launched with Salesforce Einstein in 2016, would typically help with use cases such as “tell me what may happened”, for example chances of closing an opportunity. Generative AI (and related co-pilots) launched in 2023 would assist with use cases such as “help me do my job”, like summarizing an email that you can send to your prospects. The biggest differentiator of this third wave of AI (Agents) is that it is action oriented, covering use-cases towards “get the job done for me”. Do not take notes during your customer calls: let the Sales Agent do that for you. Do not just summarize an email for you, let the Sales Agent send it out to your prospects”.
Introducing Sales Agents
During the Sales Breakout session at Innovation Day, the Salesforce team on stage shared the launch of two types of Sales Agents to support making Sales Reps much more productive: the SDR Agent and the Sales Coach Agent. The SDR Agent can help with actions such as sending emails, answering customer questions and handing over to the Sales Rep when the timing is right. The Sales Coach Agent can assist with use cases such as role play scenarios, where you as the Sales Rep or Sales Manager receive a review that the Sales Coach Agent summarizes for you. On top of that, it is possible to include the Sales Coach Agent in actual customer calls and get feedback after the call.
Introducing Service Agents
During the Service Breakout session the launch of the Service Agent was presented. With the help of the Service Agent customers can engage autonomously across any channel 24/7. The Service Agent can support resolving cases swiftly and accurately by grounding every answer in trusted data. With the help of pre-built templates, the Service Agents can be set-up rapidly and customized with low-code. From a security standpoint, you can define security guardrails for which actions the Service Agent can take, where the Service Agent can seamlessly escalate to human service representatives when needed.
A key enabler for above is to ground AI in your Enterprise Knowledge Base. By doing this, the Service Agent can support with replies in conversations and cases by generating personalized responses grounded in relevant data sources, making it possible for customers to ask natural language questions and get conversational answers.
Learning from Customers: Finnair’s AI Journey
During the Service Breakout session, we also got the chance to listen to Finnair’s AI journey which was full of valuable insights and lessons learned. The Finnair representative shared a few key learnings on their AI journey from “the good old day process” to “AI powered customer service”:
“Do, learn, improve and repeat. It cannot be perfect from the start”
“Engage all levels of the organization to have support from the teams to the C-level”
“Keep the business benefits in mind. For Finnair, it’s the cost efficiency through increased automation, people experience and CX!”
"Remember the big picture! What are the needed decisions and how is the ecosystem around you, changing? That will impact the timing and speed of the revolution”
Wrapping up Salesforce Innovation Day 2024
After the Service Breakout it was very nice to get the chance to mingle and meet Trailblazer-friends during the Salesforce Innovation Day After Work. We at Deploy Consulting would once again like to take the opportunity to thank the Salesforce Sweden team for arranging such a professional, insightful event full of both energy and inspiration.
If you are interested in deploying your agents but do not know where or how to start, contact us and we can meet for over a fika. Afterall, is there anything better than a cup of coffee in one hand, a cinnamon bun in the other and a conversation on how to deploy the future together? ☕