I just got back from my very first Salesforce Dreamforce
in San Francisco, and honestly, my head is still spinning.
Stepping onto that massive campus around Moscone Center for the first time is something else – the energy, the crowd, and the sheer scale of the whole thing completely took over the city. Now that I’ve had a few days to digest it all, here are the three big things that really stood out to me.
1. The Vibe and Experiential Trends
I expected a big tech conference, but I wasn’t expecting it to feel so hands-on and immersive. It is extremely tricky keeping an event of this size feeling personalised and human.
I was pleasantly surprised to see the event floor packed with interactive zones where you could get hands-on with the tools. Salesforce managed to break down a massive global event into smart, hyper-focused micro-experiences tailored to specific industry problems. The whole setup blended the physical event with the digital app so smoothly that navigating the crowds to get where I needed to quickly actually felt easy.
2. Marketing is Changing Fast (Enter AI Agents)
Sitting in on the Marketing Keynote made one thing crystal clear: the way we run campaigns is undergoing a massive shift. We’re moving away from spending weeks mapping out every single step of a rigid customer journey. Instead, we set the goals, brand rules, and guardrails, and AI agents handle the real-time execution. A few highlights that excited me about how much the technology will simplify the marketing workload:
- Palmata: People are asking ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude for product recommendations instead of just using Google. Palmata helps you track what AI is saying about your brand and tweak your content so it hits the mark.
- Contentful: With Salesforce acquiring Contentful, seeing how headless content flows across web, email, and commerce in one place was super impressive.
- Smart Ecosystem Tools: Learning how tools like Blackthorn integrate directly inside the platform alongside new agents like Piper (for handling inbound leads) and Hunter (for outbound sales) showed how to quickly turn intent into pipeline.
3. The Power of In-Person Community
As great as the tech demos were, the best part of my first Dreamforce was the ability to connect with other delegates.
Being able to grab a coffee and chat with other delegates facing the exact same challenges—balancing legacy tech, figuring out AI, and trying to scale—was worth the trip alone. I spent a bit of time in the A/NZ lounge and the marketing lounge – they were great hubs for chatting to others who were also in different stages of their marketing maturity journey. The conversations and spontaneous networking with experts across tech, marketing, and sales proved that nothing beats connecting face-to-face.
I’m already looking forward to the next one. If you’d like to learn more about my time there, please reach out!
Felippe Diaz