Reflecting on an Inspiring Day at Salesforce #WorldTourLondon

Yesterday, I attended the Salesforce #WorldTourLondon event, my yearly pilgrimage to the Excel Conference Centre! My goals were to learn new things, catch up with old and new friends, and come away inspired. I'm happy to say I accomplished all three. ??

The day started early, up at 5:00 AM and I was on the road by 5:30. Thankfully, the mornings are already light this time of year. A quick stop at a drive-through coffee shop and I was once again on my way perked up by a pipping hot caffeinated beverage. Three hours later, after a couple of missed turns, I pulled up in my parking space.

The queue for registration was busy as always but flowed better than previous years. After about 15 minutes, I was in. The showcase area seemed to have more vendors than ever, and it was bustling. I found myself a little lost at first.

Unfortunately, the event Wi-Fi wasn't working for me from the get go, and from what I gathered, it wasn’t working for most people. Without a network connection or phone signal, I couldn’t communicate or use the event app to view my agenda or the venue map. This had a big impact on my day, but I made the best of it.

Despite the hiccups, the venue buzzed with energy, and it was great to see the enthusiasm from new and existing Salesforce users. I’ve been in the ecosystem for almost seven years (where did that time go?), and it always makes me smile when I hear conversations from people just starting out, realising all the potential they have at their fingertips.

The event's focus was of course AI, and the big news was that Salesforce is opening a Salesforce AI Centre in the UK. This is a huge win, potentially generating many jobs and putting the UK firmly on the map as leaders in Enterprise AI.

The keynote was slick, starting with an energising gospel choir, followed by a professional and enthusiastic performance by Zahra Bahrololoumi CBE , CEO of Salesforce UK&I. Zahra’s excitement about the UK&I Salesforce AI Centre was palpable, and it’s a real boon for the UK Salesforce ecosystem. Her passion and pride in Salesforce UK’s achievements over the years was also evident. It's the first time I've had the opportunity to hear her speak in person and she did a fantastic job.

Justin Wilson shared impressive statistics about Data Cloud, including the fact that Salesforce currently stores over 250 petabytes of customer data, that's a heck of a lot of zeros and ones.

He also announced three new features for Data Cloud:

1. Availability on Hyperforce UK, with data stored locally in the UK.
2. Launch of Data Cloud Vector Database to handle unstructured data.
3. Introducing Proactive Asset Management .

Justin also announced 200+ new Data Cloud connectors, making it easier to bring disparate system data together, so there's no excuse not to enhance your customer 360 experience!

The Aston Martin demo showcased Einstein Copilot and Prompt Builder, and how they are using it to transform their relationships with customers through AI-driven personalised recommendations and communications. Big kudos to Kent Packman , the solutions architect from Aston Martin, who nailed his presentation despite some apparent initial nerves. I'm sure he was thinking why did I say I'd do this!

Jocelyn Zanasi discussed how Copilot offers a unified experience across all clouds which is an important feature as it's a consistent user experience. It also includes a bunch of new features in Slack :

1. Copilot for natural language interactions with data.
2. Record Channels for direct interaction with record data.
3. Sales Elevate for real-time opportunity summaries.
4. Slack Lists for managing lists and tasks.

She also highlighted Recap in Slack, a daily summary feature that will save users time by presenting them with a summary of mentions and relevant conversations across multiple channels.

Taksina Eammano talked about the new app building paradigm, moving towards dynamic and conversational interactions using Copilot instead of the point and click user experience we are currently used to. The key AI builder used to enable this new way of working are collectively known as Einstein 1 Studio :

1. Prompt Builder for reusable prompts grounded in your data.
2. Model Builder to bring or create your own models.
3. Copilot Builder for creating experiences using standard or custom actions which utilise tools such as flow or even custom Apex.

Einstein Planner Service provides automation, using actions based on manual or data driven triggers. Although AI will handle some tasks typically done by humans, the need for skilled Salesforce admins, developers, and architects remains essential to design, build apps and manage the use of these new tools.

During the rest of the day, I attended a number of sessions including an inspiring presentation by my fellow Norwich User Group leader Leanne Botwright , hosted by the fantastic Christie Fidura .

Louise Lockie 's session on certification with Abigail Green , Tracy I. and Tom Bassett highlighted different perspectives about certification and each persons experience of achieving them. Louise's Salesforce Well-Architected framework was also enlightening and I plan to spend more time in the portal looking for useful tips and tools when working on future projects.

I did however miss all the non-profit sessions due to over-subscription which is a pity as it's my main arena of work these days so I hope the content will be published later to catch up on.

Lastly and very importantly, I caught up with many friends and colleagues in the community. As a solo consultant working from home in rural Norfolk, I don’t get a chance to interact with many people face to face these days. It sounds ridiculous but you get out of practice, even conversations can be a challenge and dealing with the shear volume of people at an event like this can be a little overwhelming. However, It was great to meet people I’ve only interacted with online and finally have those face-to-face conversations. Here's my annual selfie collection!

So, another World Tour ticked off—my fifth! Looking forward to London’s Calling in July and getting to catch up with Francis Pindar Kerry Townsend Louise Lockie Todd Halfpenny Jade Hawken who always run an excellent event... going to have a tint of sadness this year without Amanda Beard-Neilson being there but she will be remembered.

We are going to be running InspireEast again this year after a break of a couple of years and we have the amazing duo of Stephanie Herrera and Jack McCurdy on the team now which is fantastic. You can go register your interest now and we will keep you informed as the planning progresses.

If you didn't make it to the event you can catch key sessions on Salesforce+ right now.

Leanne Botwright Sarah Metcalfe Melissa Shepard Melissa Hill Dees, MBA Evaldas Zaranka Amnon Kruvi Bash Din Christie Fidura Pei Mun Lim Rob Cowell Matt Bevins ? Will Turner Todd Halfpenny