Salesforce TrailblazerDX: 5 Big Slack, AI And Einstein Launches

Here are five big launches from Salesforce’s TrailblazerDX 2024 developer conference that partners and developers need to know about.

Salesforce launched a slew of new generative AI and Slack capabilities, as well as a new developer portal, at the Salesforce TrailblazerDX 2024 conference Wednesday.

From the new Salesforce Einstein 1 Studio offering to new Python And JavaScript functions in Bolt, Salesforce’s TrailblazerDX developer conference is focused on the new AI era.

“AI’s true gold isn't in the UI or model—they’re both commodities,” Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff recently said on X. “What breathes life into AI is the data and metadata that describes the data to the model—just like oxygen for us. The future’s fortune lies in our data.”

The Salesforce developer conference comes as the San Francisco-based software and CRM superstar launches its AI and generative AI push with Einstein Copilot, a new conversational AI assistant for CRM applications.

“Salesforce Einstein Copilot equals CRM+Data+AI+Trust: unlocking groundbreaking decisions and strategies in your enterprise,” Benioff said. “Experience how our unique data and metadata integration brings our models to life with grounding, actions and plans. Einstein: delivering 1 trillion AI transactions weekly.”

Salesforce TrailblazerDX 2024 Conference

Thousands of IT professionals are expected to attend the TrailblazerDX 2024 conference this week at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco.

At the event, Salesforce experts and attendees can learn skills to build new generative AI applications and leverage the latest Salesforce platform features. TrailblazerDX this year includes over 300 technical sessions and hands-on workshops with the goal of bringing developers, architects and partners together with Salesforce product experts.

Keynote speakers include Salesforce co-founder and CTO of Slack Parker Harris; Salesforce’s Clara Shih, CEO of AI at Salesforce; and Anthropic co-founder and Chief Science Officer Jared Kaplan. The TrailblazerDX 2024 conference runs from March 6 to March 7.

CRN breaks down the five biggest launches at Salesforce TrailblazerDX 2024 Wednesday that partners, developers and customers need to know about.

Salesforce Launches Einstein 1 Studio

One of the biggest launches at Salesforce’s TrailblazerDX event was the new availability of Einstein 1 Studio, which is a set of low-code tools that enables Salesforce admins, partners and developers to customize Einstein Copilot experiences.

Einstein 1 Studio also aims to seamlessly embed AI across any CRM application for every customer and employee experience. The offering allows developers to customize their AI experiences while still gradually incorporating it into their CRM according to their comfort level and infrastructure bandwidth.

Einstein 1 Studio includes Copilot Builder for creating custom AI actions to accomplish specific business tasks; Prompt Builder for building and activating custom prompts in the flow of work; and Model Builder, where users can build or import a variety of AI models.

The goal with Einstein 1 Studio is to enable businesses to deliver trusted AI experiences across the Einstein 1 Platform that are tailored to their customers’ needs through grounding in their data, metadata and workflows.

New Einstein Trust Layer Data Masking

The Einstein Trust Layer is a secure AI architecture built into the Salesforce Platform that allows teams to benefit from generative AI without compromising their customer data.

At TrailblazerDX Wednesday, Salesforce unveiled a new customer-configured data masking capability. The new technology enables administrators to select fields that they want to mask, providing greater control.

Designed for enterprise AI, the Einstein Trust Layer is a collection of features that help companies gain benefit from GenAI without compromising security or safety.

Also on the AI security front, the audit trail and feedback data collected from AI prompts and responses is now stored in Data Cloud, where it can be easily reported or used for automated alerts using Flow and other Einstein 1 Platform tools.

Free Developer Portal For Slack

At TrailblazerDX, Salesforce unveiled a new, free developer portal that gives developers access to a suite of tools for building Slack applications.

The portal will showcase new apps, testing beta features and best practices, as well as events where users can meet the Slack team and other developers in virtual meetups or IRL.

“This developer home is also where we provide new tools to help you create, test, deploy and manage your Slack apps,” said Salesforce executives in a blog post.

“The first of these tools is sandboxes: create your own full Enterprise Grid instances for testing your apps without having to worry about interfering with your production workspace,” Salesforce said.

Users can provision up to 10 sandboxes that they have full administrative control over and where they can deploy an unlimited number of apps. “Because these are full Enterprise Grid workspaces, you’ll be able to test out your apps on every product tier, with full access to all of Slack’s paid features,” Salesforce said.

Python And JavaScript Functions In Bolt; CLI Slack Integration

Salesforce has now made it possible for developers to create new Bolt for Python and Bolt for JavaScript applications that allow for the creation of custom functions.

“This means you can write functions in JavaScript or Python that are hosted in your own data center and available in Workflow Builder,” said Salesforce executives in a blog post. “Now you can write functions in more languages and host them wherever you want.”

The new Bolt for Python and Bolt for JavaScript applications are available Wednesday as a beta with plans for a full release in the coming months.

In addition, Salesforce added support for scripting with the command line interface, including integrating the Slack CLI to a user’s own CI/CD pipeline.

“This should make it easier to automate testing and deploying your apps according to the practices that work best for your team,” Salesforce said.

New Trailhead AI Courses

Building on its library of AI learning content, Salesforce also launched new Trailhead courses around Einstein Copilot and Prompt Builder.

The ultimate goal is to empower administrators and developers to sharpen their AI skills.

Salesforce said more than 6 million Trailblazers now use Trailhead to learn, connect and expand their careers and have earned more than 1 million AI badges since June 2023.

“Developers are taking the reins and steering businesses through the AI revolution. In just a short time, we’ve seen developers build and deploy AI in ways that have transformed nearly every industry,” said Ann Weeby, senior vice president of Trailhead, in a statement. “Trailhead’s mission is to empower the innovators of tomorrow by offering free access to the skills and career opportunities that will define the next generation of business and technology.”