Salesforce Data Cloud Momentum Soars with Rising Adoption and New Innovation That Brings Trusted Data to Agentforce

Data Cloud saw 130% year-over-year growth in paid customers and processed more than 2 quadrillion records per quarter
Data Cloud can now surface insights from unstructured audio and video content to Agentforce, making them more contextually aware, knowledgeable, and adaptable to customer needs 
Data Cloud strengthens policy-based governance to better control how sensitive data is shared with Agentforce Agents, adds AI tagging and classification to categorize data, and introduces Private Connect for Data Cloud to enable secure data sharing with external public clouds
New Salesforce Datablazers community enables IT leaders, developers, and Data Cloud enthusiasts to stay connected and share insights on the latest data best practices, trends, and tools 
SAN FRANCISCO — September 17, 2024 – Salesforce [NYSE: CRM], the #1 AI CRM, continues to build momentum with Data Cloud, the heartbeat of the Salesforce Platform and foundation of Agentforce. The growth is fueled by strong business demand for unified data to deliver more personalized, contextually relevant, and timely customer experiences across Customer 360 applications, Flow, analytics, and Agentforce, Salesforce’s groundbreaking suite of autonomous AI agents. 
Building on that momentum, Salesforce today introduced several new Data Cloud innovations that advance an organization’s ability to transform the customer experience using data and AI. They include: additions to unstructured data support including native processing of audio and video content — such as webinars and calls — to unlock deeper customer insights; a standardized semantic data model that enables Agentforce Agents and humans to interpret and use data consistently; improved search capabilities that factor in customer context and allow for quicker information discovery; real-time data activations to respond instantly to changing customer needs; and additional data security and governance features to safeguard operations and prevent unnecessary data exposure. 
As the fastest-growing organic product in Salesforce’s history with 130% YoY growth in paid customers, Data Cloud has shown impressive scale, processing 2.3 quadrillion records (+147% YoY) in the second quarter alone. Companies like The Adecco Group, Air India, Aston Martin, FedEx, Kawasaki Motors Corp., and Wyndham Hotels & Resorts rely on Data Cloud daily to help strengthen customer relationships, boost productivity, and improve their bottom lines. Air India, in particular, is unifying its data across loyalty, reservations, and flight systems. Now, the airline has a single source of truth to handle more than 550,000 service cases each month.
“In this new era of AI and Agents, customer data and metadata are the new gold for the enterprise,” said Rahul Auradkar, EVP and GM for Data Cloud at Salesforce. “Every day, more companies are using Data Cloud to unify all their data — from customer interactions and product usage to IoT and social media data — to gain deeper customer insights across all touchpoints and channels. Because Data Cloud is the foundation of Salesforce, companies can act on data to create the most personalized and meaningful customer experiences.”
Data Cloud + Customer 360 + Agentforce: Data Cloud surfaces trusted customer data in all Salesforce Customer 360 applications, Agentforce, Flow, and analytics — creating a foundation for personalized customer experiences and real-time analytics, triggering data-driven actions and workflows, and safely driving AI across all Salesforce apps. With its zero-copy technology and MuleSoft connectors, Data Cloud can ingest data from hundreds of diverse data sources, including data lakes and warehouses. Its built-in vector database converts various data formats‌ — ‌PDFs, texts, calls, voicemails, often trapped in 90% of customer data‌ — ‌into readily usable data and harmonizes it with structured data to create comprehensive customer profiles that are stored as metadata in a unified data foundation. Because it’s fully integrated in the Salesforce Platform, this metadata can flow seamlessly into any Salesforce application based on set governance policies. This gives every team a 360-degree view of the customer to power trusted AI and drive automation and analytics across every touchpoint — without compromising data security.
Data Cloud provides the vital customer data that grounds Agentforce, making agents more contextually aware, knowledgeable, and adaptable to customer needs. For example, when a frustrated customer contacts Agentforce Service Agents, Data Cloud’s built-in Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) capabilities add real-time insights and context from past emails, support tickets, product photos, voicemails, and any sources as defined by governance policies to help Agentforce better understand the customer perspective. Data Cloud’s hybrid search then identifies the right knowledge article based on customer context to help Agentforce resolve the issue accurately. As customer requests evolve, Data Cloud guides Agentforce with next-best steps, like automating follow-up emails or passing detailed chat summaries to support human representatives. Finally, Tableau Semantics facilitates a seamless transition between AI and employees by ensuring they speak, understand, and operate using the same definitions of data.
New innovations and additions: Data Cloud customers now have access to new capabilities and enhancements that make data accessible and actionable across every Salesforce activation, including: 
The customer perspective:
“Salesforce allows us to fuse together our trusted data from across our business to deliver tailored quality experiences to every current and future Aston Martin customer while creating the personalized, VIP experience they expect, as we look to grow and succeed in the AI era,” said Matthew Randall, Head of Software and Integration, Aston Martin. 
“As a professional recruiting, staffing, and consulting business we match talent to the most exciting companies and opportunities around the world. On any given day, we connect 700,000 people with fulfilling opportunities to match their skills. We are redefining the future of work by enabling augmented recruiter experiences thanks to AI, connecting employees to the right data at the right time. Today, Data Cloud gives 27,000 employee users seamless access to key information to match skills to specific roles,” said Caroline Basyn, Chief Digital and IT Officer, The Adecco Group. 
“Each and every one of Wyndham’s hundreds of millions of guests want to be seen and heard on an individual level. Salesforce gives our reservation agents a comprehensive view of the specific guest they’re serving so they can receive a personalized experience based on context about their stay history, loyalty service, and notes from past requests. This is made possible by the suite of products with Salesforce, including Data Cloud, which harmonizes data and unifies guest profiles from our reservation platform. With this data aggregated, agents can now access guests’ booking histories at any franchise property, such as accessible room requests, loyalty status or milestones, personalizing every interaction,” said  Scott Strickland, Chief Commercial Officer, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts.
Expected availability: New Data Cloud innovations will be available in pilot, beta, or general availability within the below time frames.
Any unreleased services or features referenced here are not currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers should make their purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available.