3 Key Takeaways from Dreamforce 2024 to Overcome AI Data Challenges

Agents and AI are the future of Salesforce, are you ready? This question was top of mind for thousands of Trailblazers at Dreamforce 2024, Salesforce’s flagship event at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, California. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff’s keynote focused on how today’s generative AI (GenAI) tools do not meet expectations because they require significant human intervention to function effectively and, oftentimes, cannot quickly adapt to complex, real-world scenarios.

In fact, a recent Gartner study predicts that 30% of GenAI projects will be abandoned after proof of concept by the end of 2025, due to poor data quality, inadequate risk controls, escalating costs, and unclear business value. Similarly, the Salesforce State of Data and Analytics 2023 report revealed ongoing concerns about trusted data and data quality.

Agentforce is Salesforce’s solution to these challenges, offering the capability to create custom AI applications equipped with tailored business knowledge that deliver specialized support to employees and customers. But for any AI to work effectively — whether agents are pre-made or customizable like Agentforce — quality data is essential, and you need to overcome common data challenges to get the business outcomes you expect AI to deliver.

In this blog, I’ll share my three key insights from Dreamforce 2024, focused on how to use Salesforce data and AI in the future of work.

1. The Pursuit of Quality and Trust in Salesforce Data is a Priority Concern

Achieving data quality is a common challenge for many organizations during GenAI implementation. Ensuring accurate, complete, and relevant data depends on a robust data governance framework that also addresses data security and privacy. With the increasing reliance on AI tools and the introduction of autonomous agents, such as Agentforce, effective data governance and management are more crucial than ever. The reliability of AI tools hinges on the comprehensive data, metadata, workflows, business processes, and security models that organizations employ.

Data governance experts can assist in crafting thorough policies encompassing data quality, security, privacy, and compliance. AvePoint can accelerate the deployment and enforcement of your data governance framework, making it more efficient than ever in 2025.

2. The Need to Recognize Data Security as Essential for Business Success

My colleagues and I spoke with many Salesforce users at Dreamforce 2024, and we heard repeatedly that they didn't think they needed data protection for Salesforce. One shared with me, “There's no way users can accidentally delete data in Salesforce so we're fine.” Another said, “Our SaaS data – Microsoft 365 and Salesforce – is all in the cloud so we shouldn’t worry.” However, this mindset is worrisome.

Like any other type of sensitive data, Salesforce data is vulnerable to data loss for a variety of reasons. Whether it’s accidental deletion, Salesforce downtime, or a cyberattack, all organizations are at risk. Loss of Salesforce data can also arise from incorrect scripting or errors during mass lead uploads after a conference, which may result in the system overwriting existing contacts. 

IBM’s The State of Salesforce 2023-24 Report highlights that 79% of companies have experienced at least one cloud data breach, underscoring the critical need for robust data backup and security measures to protect sensitive information and ensure business continuity.

As many organizations are now multi-cloud, having a secure data protection solution supporting multiple technology platforms is essential. For instance, we work with Kadant, a global manufacturing firm, which experienced business interruption when a team member accidentally deleted a parent record in Salesforce, resulting in the removal of several business reports. When that happened, Kadant had to do tedious and time-consuming manual recovery. Kadant turned to AvePoint so this would never happen again across all the digital collaboration platforms they use including Salesforce, Microsoft 365, Azure, and Entra ID. You can read the full case study here.

As you can see, AvePoint Cloud Backup gives you peace of mind by keeping copies of critical data in immutable, air-gapped storage, so you can meet your retention, recovery, and compliance needs. What’s more, AvePoint Cloud Backup offers you the flexibility to do simulations through its sandbox seeding feature allowing organizations to populate a sandbox org using their backup data.

3. A Multi-Cloud Approach is Vital to Managing Complex Technology Stacks

The conversations my AvePoint colleagues and I had with IT and security teams during Dreamforce 2024 also revealed that the technology stack is inevitably multi-cloud and it will stay that way in the future. There were many tools and new vendors all trying to tackle the problem of data silos, AI readiness, and data resilience. However, too many tools lead to uncertainty as well as more risk and complexity. Simplifying the approach to data security, governance, and management tools by minimizing the number of vendors you work with offers the following benefits:

• Streamlined technology investments, reducing cyber risks and points of failure
• Less paperwork for procurement, fewer security and architecture reviews or audits
• Faster resolution of issues by a more dedicated tech support team that knows your entire stack
• Cost savings through bundling and eliminating expensive point solutions

The AvePoint Confidence Platform offers a comprehensive multi-cloud approach by securing a wide range of collaboration environments, including Microsoft, Google, Salesforce, and others. The Confidence Platform provides a scalable, secure architecture for securing, governing, and protecting data.

Secure Your Salesforce Data Today and Be Ready to Face Next Year’s Data Challenges with AvePoint Innovation

Data powers your organization’s future. Protect it now with AvePoint Cloud Backup. Our October release will help you break down data silos and use your historical data with platforms like Salesforce Data Cloud and Microsoft Dataverse. We’re also enhancing storage optimization for Salesforce by moving costly attachments and documents to cheaper storage, eliminating unnecessary data, and ensuring your resources are focused on innovation to keep Salesforce running smoothly and efficiently.

Join me for a free webinar on October 2, 2024, as I unpack these insights further on Dreamforce 2024 and explore strategies to maximize ROI in AI. Sign up here!