“He saw the blog post, remembered that this is the kind of stuff that I talk about, and said ‘we’ve got to change the keynote’.”
It was just after 9 am in San Francisco when I hopped on a call with Vernon Keenan to discuss how he, a seemingly one-man army, convinced Salesforce’s CEO Marc Benioff to make Agentforce free.
Benioff’s Quiet Right-Hand Man
Having met Vernon earlier in the year when we both found ourselves in a couple of high-profile, roundtable discussions at TrailblazerDX’s press room, It was clear that he was dedicated to speak out on important issues in the ecosystem. Wasting no time to get into the gritty details, he motioned to me that he had a coffee ready, and the conversation should begin.
Vernon, who has been an industry analyst in Salesforce and the wider tech space since the 90s, is currently the co-founder of Work Different With AI, a community positioned to bridge the gap between advanced AI technologies and everyday business practices.
He also runs SalesforceDevops.net, a website dedicated to the reporting and exploration of the Salesforce and Salesforce DevOps space, and a website that saw the release of a blog post titled ‘Why Salesforce Trailblazers Don’t Care About AI’, that managed to catch the attention of an old-time friend, confidant, and Salesforce CEO, Marc Benioff.
How It Started
When I told Vernon about how Marc Benioff openly credited his article as the catalyst for Agentforce’s freemium offering in his recent interview with Ben McCarthy, it wasn’t a look of surprise that washed over his face. It was appreciation, sure, but it was also knowing.
Marc, who had both worked with and trusted Vernon since some of Salesforce’s earliest days, had reached out once his blog post had begun setting a spark on social media. Word was getting around, and it had reached the pinnacle of its target audience.
“He started off with ‘you know, I saw your blog post, how can we make things better?’”, Vernon recounted. “That was his first question, and it was powerful – exciting.”
Just days before Dreamforce’s main keynote was set to unveil the new possibilities of Salesforce AI to thousands of Trailblazers, there wasn’t a lot of time to try new things, forge new paths, or change the trajectory of a keynote and a new release. But… it happened.
Vernon was enthused about how important it was to Marc to change the keynote. “He sent me a copy of the keynote and there were several comments that we made,” he said. The ‘we’ referred to here is a group of friends and colleagues (including Vernon) that regularly talk through Salesforce issues and feedback together, sharing ideas and suggestions. Vernon’s article may have one author, but it would be unfair to say that he’s a one-man army like I originally thought.
“I was just kind of sharing this experience with [them] the whole time, [and] it’s kind of like I was trying to leverage my Trailblazer community context the whole time.”
This context, I would come to realize, permeated throughout the entirety of his decisions on the topic up to this point.
Frustrated by the realization that people just weren’t using Salesforce Generative AI tools as much as anyone would have hoped, it made him question why.
Stewing on the thought, Vernon explained with a half-laugh that it was a shame because tools like Prompt Builder are “kind of awesome”.
“[It’s] a very simple thing that could just increase productivity for a lot of Trailblazers, and the access was missing,” he explained. “Then I realized it was because of the pricing and packaging mechanisms, and it was essentially impossible to get at this stuff unless you were to call your AE and order an Einstein SKU.”
So, the weekend before Dreamforce, that was the driving force behind the infamous blog post. “It was your basic rant type of post,” Vernon admitted. “It kind of pointed out how much [Salesforce] had lost in terms of the community’s power to enhance new things in the Salesforce ecosystem.”
“In the past, new features just appeared in your org. But now, since AI is so expensive, and since people want to make money on it, Salesforce and other companies are trying to make a transition from pure subscription-based pricing to some sort of blended subscription and consumption-based pricing.”
Leaning Into Change
So, Agentforce and Data Cloud now form part of the Salesforce Foundations package, extending the use of Salesforce’s most exciting features to users on Enterprise editions and higher on a freemium basis.
This is an effort that Vernon is, unsurprisingly, pleased about. “By offering a packaging of Foundations that could be integrated with existing Enterprise orgs, they came up with a free tier that allowed more people to use it.”
Of course, the main concern was that the want to explore Salesforce’s Generative AI tools was there, but access wasn’t (due to cost restrictions). This move from Salesforce feels like a nod of acknowledgment, and the first step to a comprehensive solution. An extension of an olive branch that came at just the right time.
About halfway through our interview, Vernon paused and offered an unexpected insight into the bigger picture of how Marc and Salesforce are approaching Salesforce’s AI direction as a whole.
With numerous articles popping up highlighting Benioff’s ‘railing’, ‘bashing’, and ‘slamming’ of Microsoft lately, (what adjective will they come up with next?), it was both refreshing and slightly surprising to hear that Benioff probably wanted to approach Salesforce’s own AI ventures with openness.
“I sense that Salesforce wants to have a beginner’s mind when it comes to consumptive pricing,” he mentioned with a bit of a glint behind his thick-rimmed glasses. “I do think there will be changes in the future.”
The ‘beginner’s mind’ approach is a big but purposeful plan of action for businesses, especially businesses of Salesforce’s scale. Making an effort to approach challenges and processes with the openness and drive to learn of a beginner, despite seniority, indicates that a business wants to continuously learn from those around them instead of working off of established experiences. It’s a move that encourages feedback and guidance from a community, much like Vernon’s sequence of events has played out.
Of course, when I asked about what kind of changes Vernon predicted for Salesforce’s AI future, particularly for the transparency of the new freemium offering, there was the half smile of someone who has Marc Benioff on speed dial and is careful with spilling secrets.
“I mean, currently, you know, if I’m looking at the forecast for pricing transparency in the Salesforce AI services, I’d say current conditions are cloudy, but tomorrow might be partly cloudy.”
Giving Feedback and Advocating
At a time when there is confusion and a longing for clarity on certain Salesforce features and products, it’s important that advocating and giving feedback are two pillars that bring the ecosystem together in search of answers. It’s something that spokespeople like Vernon, Matt Pieper, and Mehmet Orun do a great job of, and hopefully uplift others in the community to do the same.
Vernon explained that his Agentforce/Foundations result was not only a win for him, but the ecosystem as a whole.
“I thought it was a real victory for Trailblazers here because it was a product of me listening to what people were saying,” he said. The listening and the subsequent push for change yielded a great outcome, and Vernon acknowledges that it was largely down to his authority.
“I think the key to having power as a spokesperson or as an advocate is credibility and some sort of history. Anybody can strive to be a thought leader and strive to be a community person and share content.”
When I asked specifically about the best ways to deliver feedback, especially if they erred on the side of criticism, he stressed the importance of empathy.
“You don’t want to pull out your poison pen, or turn on your flamethrower and hope your opponent is wearing an asbestos suit,” he said. “Empathy is key, and another thing is appreciation. I think expressing those qualities about the subject that you’re trying to criticize is important because hopefully, the criticism is coming from a place of appreciation.”
Reacting quickly in frustration and throwing a fist at the metaphorical sky is probably not the best way to get your point across, or get your intended audience to listen to you. With feedback on Salesforce, even Marc has stated that he is open to people reaching out to him. He’s a busy guy, so response times may vary, but the playing field is set out.
So, if you want to get some genuine feedback across, consider these three things:
- Be empathetic: The people you’re giving feedback to or criticizing are still people, and if you want them to listen, there’s no point storming ahead in an email or on LinkedIn, typing up a frenzied fire.
- Be appreciative: Even if you want to discuss something negative, you hopefully are appreciative of the bigger topic/focus and want to make a positive change. Lean into that.
- Strive to be a community person: Developing and having a platform where you regularly speak in your community and share your thoughts will help you establish your credibility and authority.
Final Thoughts
Vernon Keenan is proof that something as inconspicuous as an article has the potential to change the trajectory of an entire packaged Salesforce offering – a pretty big beacon of hope for the rest of the ecosystem if you had to ask me.
As Salesforce’s AI continues to develop and evolve, giving feedback and recognizing pitfalls will only become more important. After all, we are the ones using it, so if it doesn’t work for us, something needs to change. We have the power to make it change – let’s use it.