Key Takeaways from Salesforce Connections CNX26

Last week, I was at Salesforce Connections 2026 in Chicago, and if there was one theme that showed up everywhere, it was this: Salesforce is focused on helping organizations put AI agents to work today. From the opening keynote to customer sessions, workshops, and hallway conversations, Agentforce, Data Cloud, and connected customer experiences dominated the discussion.

Connections has always been Salesforce’s event for marketers, commerce leaders, and customer experience professionals, but this year felt different. The conversations weren’t just about sending better campaigns or improving reporting. They were about how organizations can create more responsive, personalized experiences using a combination of trusted data, automation, AI, and human expertise.

The Big Story: The Agentic Enterprise

The opening keynote, led by Salesforce Chief Marketing Officer Patrick Stokes, focused heavily on what Salesforce calls the “Agentic Enterprise.” The vision is a future where AI agents work alongside people to help organizations operate more efficiently, engage customers more effectively, and make decisions faster.

One idea that came up repeatedly was the evolution of the marketer’s role. Rather than spending time manually coordinating campaigns and workflows, marketers increasingly become builders and orchestrators who guide AI-powered experiences through strategy, guardrails, and oversight.

Salesforce demonstrated how Agentforce can monitor performance, recommend actions, identify bottlenecks, and help teams respond in real time. One great example featured a simulated Formula 1 marketing team where AI agents monitored campaign results and adjusted channel recommendations based on performance data.

AI Was Everywhere

Across more than 270 sessions and dozens of hands-on workshops, Salesforce showcased how AI agents can support marketing operations, customer engagement, commerce experiences, and internal collaboration.

The focus has clearly moved beyond chatbots. Salesforce is positioning AI agents as active participants that can work alongside teams, automate routine tasks, surface insights, and help drive business outcomes.

Agentforce Coworker and Agentforce for Slack appeared frequently in demonstrations, reinforcing Salesforce’s vision of AI embedded directly into how teams work every day.

Data Cloud Continues to Be the Foundation

If AI was the headline, Data Cloud was the foundation underneath nearly everything discussed at Connections. Whether the session focused on marketing, commerce, service, or AI, the conversation almost always came back to customer data.

Salesforce spent considerable time discussing how organizations can unify customer information, activate data in real time, and create the trusted foundation needed for AI-powered experiences.

One thing that became clear throughout the event is that AI success starts with data readiness. Organizations with strong data foundations will be positioned to move faster and realize value more quickly from the next generation of AI capabilities.

Commerce and Customer Experience

Another major focus area was the intersection of AI, commerce, and customer experience. Salesforce highlighted how organizations can use AI agents and customer data to create more personalized buying journeys, improve engagement across channels, and respond to customers in more meaningful ways.

The conference also included keynote appearances from business icon Martha Stewart, who shared lessons on building brands and turning content into commerce, and free solo climber Alex Honnold, who discussed decision-making, risk, and what it takes to pursue ambitious goals.

The vision isn’t simply more automation. It’s creating experiences that feel more relevant, timely, and connected from the customer’s perspective.

Learning Beyond the Keynotes

Some of the most valuable conversations, however, happened outside the sessions themselves. It’s always interesting to hear how customers, partners, consultants, and Salesforce teams are approaching similar challenges and opportunities from different perspectives.

I was fortunate to spend time with a number of Salesforce account executives, solution engineers, consulting partners, and ISVs, including several meetings at Salesforce Tower Chicago before the conference even began. Those conversations continued throughout the event and reinforced something I’ve seen across the ecosystem: organizations are eager to move faster with AI, automation, and customer experience initiatives, but they also want practical guidance on how to do it successfully.

Many of our discussions focused on helping organizations maximize their Salesforce investments, improve adoption, strengthen their data foundations, and identify real-world use cases for Agentforce and AI. It’s always valuable to step away from the presentations and hear directly from the people working with customers every day.

For me, those conversations are one of the biggest benefits of attending CNX. The sessions provide the vision, but the discussions with customers, Salesforce teams, partners, and technology providers often reveal how that vision is being applied in the real world.

Party for the Ohana

No CNX recap would be complete without talking about the concert! This year’s event featured Foster the People and Chicago’s own Smashing Pumpkins and it was truly epic!

Smashing Pumpkins have a fantastic new bassist and they brought nonstop energy. For dinner, they served unlimited tacos and BBQ, with fresh made homemade ice cream cookies for dessert. The night was an all around win!

The concert has become a Connections tradition and a reminder that some of the best networking happens after the keynotes are over.

My Biggest Takeaway

My biggest takeaway from Connections 2026 is that organizations don’t need to do everything at once. The companies making the most progress aren’t chasing every new feature announcement. They’re focusing on the fundamentals: understanding their customers, improving data quality, streamlining processes, and identifying practical ways AI can support their teams.

That’s where we spend most of our time at Canvas Cloud. Whether it’s Salesforce optimization, strategic planning, managed services, or customer experience improvements, our goal is always the same: helping organizations turn Salesforce investments into meaningful business outcomes.

If you’d like to talk about any of the themes from Connections 2026 or explore what they could mean for your organization, feel free to reach out. I’d love to compare notes! Let’s talk.

About the Author

Daniel Dibble is President and CRO of Canvas Cloud, a Salesforce Consulting Partner.  Connect with Daniel on LinkedIn. If you’d like to meet with Daniel to discuss your organization’s Salesforce strategy, fill out our Contact Us form.