At Dreamforce 2022 this week, Salesforce made a series of announcements aimed at improving the cloud software-as-a-service (SaaS) vendor’s platform.
Among the biggest announcements at the conference was the launch of Genie, a data platform that will underpin all of Salesforce’s data-driven efforts, including its customer relationship management (CRM) platform.
Slack, already Acquired by Salesforce for $28 billion in 2021, also made news at Dreamforce with its digital HQ initiative and new feature previews.
Rounding out the big news at Dreamforce is Salesforce’s sustainability effort called the Net Zero Marketplace, where businesses can buy carbon credits to help fight climate change.
For Salesforce founder and CEO Marc Benioff (pictured), Dreamforce and his company’s announcements are about rethinking the way people work, with a focus on the Japanese concept of shoshin, which means beginner’s mind.
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“We need to have a beginner’s mind, especially when it’s a new day like this. A beginner’s mind has every possibility, but the expert’s mind has very few,” Benioff said. “So how do we cultivate our beginner’s mind when it’s a new day for business? We need to start thinking about what we really want.”
Salesforce unveiled Genie at Dreamforce 2022
Underlying all of Salesforce’s SaaS applications is some form of data access as a core component. The new Genie platform is an effort to bring real-time data infrastructure to Salesforce.
“Genie is a high-speed, hyperscale data lake infrastructure that powers all Salesforce applications,” said David Schmaier, president and chief product officer at Salesforce, in a press briefing. “Genie enhances all Salesforce applications.”
Genie leverages many of the capabilities already in the Salesforce platform to help enable real-time data delivery. It can use the Salesforce Flow automation platform to enable faster workflow. It also leverages Salesforce’s Einstein AI technology to help make better decisions and predictions.
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Genie is needed because most organizations have data in many different places. At a foundational level, Genie provides a high-speed data lake that allows businesses to pull data from all their disparate systems to provide a unified customer experience.
“Genie is the platform that allows organizations to deliver magical customer experiences,” said Schmaier. “They really aren’t magical — we’re using science to deliver this magic, and we’re using our Flow technology to provide better, faster, easier automation.”
Slack Gets a New Canvas for Collaboration
Tamar Yehoshua, chief product officer at Slack, explained at the press briefing how her company’s technology has enabled a digital HQ for many organizations.
At Dreamforce, Slack previewed Canvas, a new feature to help companies share more information across conversations and channels. A canvas can be created and attached to a specific channel to help collect and share information. It can also integrate with other enterprise tools like Tableau analytics software, Atlassian Jira, and Google Workplace to get more information.
“The canvas is an iterative layer of information that captures answers, and it complements the real-time nature of Slack channels,” Yehoshua said.
About the author
Sean Michael Kerner is an IT consultant, technology enthusiast and tinkerer. He consults with industry and media organizations on technology issues.