Dreamforce 2026 revealed how Salesforce sees the next phase of enterprise software. AI is moving from individual productivity tools toward systems that can take responsibility for larger pieces of work.
By Sanna Halttunen-Välimaa, Head of Revenue & Growth at Luxid
Sanna Halttunen-Välimaa attended Dreamforce 2026 in San Francisco and shares observations and insights for organizations using Salesforce or evaluating their future CRM and customer experience strategy.
On the ground in San Francisco
Dreamforce has always been part conference, part customer event, and part vision statement. This year, Salesforce used the event to connect a wide range of recent product developments into a broader narrative about digital labor.
Before diving into the announcements, a few observations from the event itself.
Dreamforce is a huge production. With an estimated 45,000–50,000 attendees, I expected queues everywhere. Instead, the event was remarkably well organized. Registration, session access, transportation, and logistics all ran smoothly, making it easy to focus on the content and conversations rather than the practicalities of moving between venues.
Salesforce had also invested heavily in the experience. Matthew McConaughey attracted plenty of attention, but so did Gwen Stefani, who opened the main keynote and later performed at Dreamfest alongside Usher. Those moments helped create the kind of atmosphere that makes Dreamforce feel more like a festival than a technology conference.
What stood out most, however, was the sense of community. People were genuinely excited to be there. Whether I was attending sessions, talking with customers, or moving between events across the city, there was a shared enthusiasm that was difficult to miss.
And one practical tip for anyone planning to attend in the future: bring comfortable shoes. I walked between 12,000 and 20,000 steps every day. Dreamforce extends well beyond the conference venues, with countless side events taking place across San Francisco. Even without a conference pass, there's plenty happening throughout the city.
A new conversation about work
What stayed with me after the keynotes was how consistently Salesforce talked about work, rather than isolated AI features.
Previous AI conversations often focused on what a model could create. At Dreamforce, the discussion focused on what a system could accomplish. Across product demonstrations and customer stories, Salesforce presented a future where AI agents can handle larger parts of a business process, while people provide direction, oversight, and accountability.
That idea connected many of the themes, demonstrations, and product discussions across the event.
Digital labor is becoming easier to deploy
Many organizations are interested in AI, but few want to build every use case from scratch.
Salesforce appears to be responding to that reality by packaging AI capabilities into role-based agents. During the event, the company demonstrated agents for service, sales, commerce, operations, and other business functions.
For customers, this changes the starting point. The challenge is less about designing a custom AI architecture and more about deciding where automation can have the greatest impact.
A practical question for leadership teams may be:
"Which activities absorb time and resources today, and could an agent help handle part of that work?"
Coordinated agents create more value
Individual AI tools can complete tasks. Business processes require coordination.
One of the recurring themes at Dreamforce was orchestration. Salesforce demonstrated how agents can share context, work across multiple steps, and operate over longer periods of time.
That matters because business outcomes rarely depend on a single action.
Generating a lead, qualifying that lead, scheduling a meeting, updating records, and supporting handover between teams all contribute to the final result. Organizations evaluating AI initiatives should pay attention to how systems connect actions together, not just how well they perform individual tasks.
New pricing models reflect a shift in thinking
Another interesting signal was Salesforce's growing emphasis on outcomes.
For decades, software has largely been priced around access: licenses, seats, and subscriptions. Dreamforce suggested that value may increasingly be measured by completed work and business results.
This does not mean outcome-based models will replace traditional pricing overnight. It does indicate a broader change in how technology providers talk about value creation.
The focus is moving closer to business impact.
A quick note on data
Trusted data appeared throughout the event, often through discussions around Data 360. Salesforce views customer data, metadata, and business context as a foundation for agent-driven work.
I'll explore that topic in more detail in the next article because it sits behind almost every AI announcement made at Dreamforce.
What this means for Salesforce customers
Dreamforce 2026 suggested a future where software contributes more directly to business execution.
The organizations that benefit most are unlikely to be those that deploy the largest number of agents. More often, they will be the organizations that identify the right use cases, connect workflows effectively, and define clear responsibilities between people and technology.
The discussion around AI is entering a more practical phase. That shift may be one of the most important takeaways from Dreamforce.
Watch the sessions
I attended Dreamforce 2026 in San Francisco, but some of the most valuable discussions happened during the keynotes and customer sessions themselves. If you'd like to explore Salesforce's vision for Agentforce, digital labor, and AI-powered work in more detail, many of the sessions are available on demand through Salesforce+:
