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The Doing Business in Bentonville Podcast
To create an ecosystem that connects leaders of all kinds – industry, community, student, educational, civic, investment and entrepreneurial – to help overcome Omnichannel Retail barriers through exclusive, insight-rich content.
The Doing Business in Bentonville Podcast
Trust, Tech and Tangible AI: Slalom Innovation Day
The floor is buzzing in downtown Bentonville, but the real signal is trust. We step into Slalom’s Innovation Day at The Record to explore how a local-first consulting model, a practitioner mindset, and a world-class partner ecosystem turn AI from flashy demos into business outcomes. From quick, no-code agents that capture leads on a phone to a lakehouse foundation that unifies data for analytics and governance, the conversations focus on what customers actually need—and how fast they can get there without sacrificing safety or ethics.
Saint Fults, General Manager at Slalom, lays out Slalom’s ethos: take on the hardest problems with a local team you know by name. That proximity changes everything—strategy becomes concrete, timelines get tighter, and results get measured in customer impact. Marco Kilongkilong, Senior Principal at Slalom, dives into trusted AI, unpacking why governance, responsible inputs, and clear design choices are the bedrock of adoption. John Mathis, Managing Director at Slalom, zooms out to the big picture: leaders are drowning in options, so the path forward is to pick practical use cases, start small, and ship value quickly while protecting privacy and staying compliant.
Partners bring the engine. Databricks explains how the Data Intelligence Platform and Agent Bricks lower the barrier to agentic systems so non-technical teams can orchestrate tasks and content with real guardrails. Salesforce shows how a unified platform lets business users build AI-powered workflows rapidly—no code required—while highlighting zero-copy data sharing across providers like Google and Databricks to finally unlock end-to-end insights. Throughout the night, one theme keeps returning: the future belongs to teams that blend clear governance, solid data foundations, and human-centered change.
If you’re navigating AI hype, looking for your first high-impact win, or rebuilding trust with tech that actually works, this conversation offers a roadmap you can use tomorrow. Subscribe, share with a colleague who’s stuck at “pilot,” and leave a review with the AI use case you want us to unpack next.
Hello everyone, I'm Andy Wilson doing business in Bentonville, and I tell you we're downtown Bentonville tonight at a great place called the Record, and we're I'm at an event called Solemn, and it is fantastic. It's packed with people, and I am fortunate enough to have Saint with me with Solemn and welcome. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me to this. This has been such a blast. I've been all over the floor talking to the partners that you have here tonight. And uh wow, what an event. That's the best reaction we could hope for. I hope we hear more of that. Tell us what you do with Solomon.
SPEAKER_08:Yeah, so I lead um uh this area for Slalom. So we have Missouri, Kansas, and Arkansas. Slalom's a consulting company. We help our main focus is helping customers solve their hardest problems, and whether that's business or technology. Okay, boy, right.
SPEAKER_01:That is such a great statement. So you help customers solve their biggest problems.
SPEAKER_08:Yes. We have even a simpler phrase. We're like hard problem, hard timeline, hard solution, hard technology. That's when you call us. That's awesome. Well, I love it. I'm fired up about it. I bet you love doing that, don't you? That's give me your biggest problem, I'm here. That's that's our that's where we that's work, and it's what we love to do. That's awesome. Yeah, okay. Go ahead, man. Yeah, uh, so that's what we do. Um Solom is a we're very local focused. So when when the company started, our founder and CEO wanted to get off airplanes, and so he's like, well, I bet we can do business where we live. And so each one of our offices and markets only works with clients in their geographic area. And so we are starting here in Bentonville, um, super excited, and we do events like this because it matters to us to get connected to people first. That's the key to how we do things. And we we want to build relationships, we want to build trust. Because you're not gonna ask us to help with your hardest problems if you don't know anything about us.
SPEAKER_01:You know, I love what you said, and I want to underline it to our guests and our viewers. You said we want to build trust. You know, I don't think there's anything more important. And and I have talked to a couple of Solomon representatives or employees, associates, whatever, and you know, I've heard that word trust a couple of times already this evening. That's powerful. And that says that that's exactly what you're gonna do. I love it. And and um now, these events like this, okay. This one is for northwest Arkansas, right? Yes. Back to your point. Do you do things like this in the St. Louis area or your area? Do you have events like this?
SPEAKER_08:Yes, we do. So we did one in St. Louis, uh, we have another one coming up in Kansas City. Um for me, in the the area that um I lead, our main cities are St. Louis, Kansas City, Sudabi, Northwest Arkansas, and Bentonville, and and Wichita. And that uh Wichita's our fourth one coming out. Well, tell us what you do. What do you lead? What area? Um, so my background is in digital products. Um, my my profession is how do you come up with an idea, you want to take something to the market, you want to take something to your customer, and can you do that with technology? And something I love to do. Uh I try to wedge my way into any project uh that my team has. Yeah. They try to push me out as much as they can and try to make me manage Excel sheets and look at PowerPoints as much as possible. But you get your hands in it, oh yeah. It's what I love. The heart of what my team does, and I you'll hear it when you talk to them. We have a deep belief that everybody in our group is a practitioner first. Yeah. So we want to have our hands on what we do. Yeah. Our event today is there, they're tangible demos. A lot of people talking about AI, but what we really want to do is see how it actually works, works, touch the applications. Good. And it speaks to the heart of we all love what we do. So the practition, the ability to do it is the first thing I address.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, say one last question, as we think about, and and you've done such a great job talking about your company, but as as if you are a potential client, a customer listening in, what what's the biggest issues that most companies face today? That is a great question.
SPEAKER_08:I think even in the context of this event, the thing we see right now is this race to do something with AI. It's what everybody talks about. Yeah. But what we find is a lot of people don't know what to do, know what to do with the platform, maybe tink around in it. And so I think it's helping people connect a new trend or a new technology or the future of technology to what they actually need, what their customers might want, and what their problems really are. Right. And that's that's the thing we want to do with this.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I'll I'll tell you, when I've walked around the floor tonight and I've I've talked to all the presenters or partners that are here tonight, and every one of them are focused within certain categories. You can tell, you can tell their subject matter experts, people like you that are helping leading those projects. I I'll tell you, all of our uh potential your potential customers, I would recommend this company. I mean, you you heard it from Saint talk about what he wants to do is build trust with you. And so, again, that's powerful, man. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for joining me tonight. Yeah, thank you. We're glad to have you. It's thank you for inviting me to the event. Such a great event. I hope to see you again. My guest, Marco, welcome. Hi, Andy, and I'm sorry. Man, it's good to see you, and uh, thank you, and you with some. That's a great thing. That's right, yeah. Okay, all right. Now, um, what do you think about the event tonight?
SPEAKER_04:It's great. It's great to be back in Bentonville. Uh it's uh uh it's always great to see the business community come out. There's also a lot of college students here that are interested in the subject of AI and technology and emerging technology and what that means.
SPEAKER_01:Well, well, yeah, it's been such a fun night, and I have learned so much. Uh now as we talk about to our viewers and and guests, uh tell us about the space that you're working in particularly.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, absolutely. I work with in the uh intersection of people and technology. Okay. And so what does uh technology do and impact uh organizations, uh workflows, uh uh and and also the the processes behind those things? And I help our clients think through hey, if I am introducing AI or any kind of uh emergent technology into my organization, what impact does that have on my people, on my talent, and the the the skills needed to um to keep up uh with uh the growing pace and environment of the future.
SPEAKER_01:That's a big job. Yeah, that is especially at this unbelievable pace that we're in right now, this whole thing about AI. And I want to go there a bit deeper with you, but one of the things that I've been so impressed with the SOLEM team tonight, all of you have talked about the importance of the customer, the client, and the importance of trust. You your company has really talked a lot about trust tonight. Now tell me, with all this with AI and all the changes and all the impact it's having, how do you navigate that? How do you help your customers with that?
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, you know, I think about um the the that subject of trust, but it's all about are you able to um to reap the benefits of that investment with AI? And the only way that works is if you trust in that technology. So how do you get your team to trust that? You have to have strong governance around AI to do that. Do you trust that it performs as expected? Um do you trust that the inputs are safe and responsible? And is it designed in a way that you feel good about and that um that it's uh able to execute uh what you need it to do? So that's uh that's really what you uh want to think about of how do you build trusted AI systems? It's with strong governance to be able to execute and have your people uh have your workforce enabled.
SPEAKER_01:So Marco, it sounds like that as you work with your clients, your customers, that you you really help guide them through this with this new process and these new these new processes, especially around AI, right? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So so uh tell us how tell me how long you've been with Slalom?
SPEAKER_04:Uh I've been with Slum it'll be four years in October.
SPEAKER_01:Wonderful. Yeah. And you're located in the St. Louis area? St. Louis area, yeah, yeah. Great, great. So what as you as as people that are viewing this and listening to this like, okay, we've heard a lot about AI, we've heard a lot about all the these new and new new incentives and things going on. Um what how do they reach out to you? How do you guide new clients, customers through this process? How does that work? Yeah.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, absolutely. You can go on our website and uh on our website you can find ways to connect with us. Um you can also find me on LinkedIn if you're interested. Okay. So that's uh Marco Kalong Kalong and uh my last name, K-I-L-O-N G. K-I-L-O-N-G. And if you want to nerd out about AI and and what that means to uh to your workforce, let's talk, let's have a chat.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, good. Now, as again, one one more final question that because I have been so intrigued with what's been going on here tonight, I'm excited about the future. I'm excited about what your company offers and and and the products and the partners that your company has brought here tonight.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So talk about the partnerships that that are here tonight and how that works, you know, how that all works together.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. You know, you can think of our partnership as an ecosystem. And you know what? Uh let me scratch that. Here we go. Um You can think of our partnership as like a team, right? Um you have some people that are sitting on the bench, you got some people that are your starters, but throughout the game, you might be able to select some others to come join in, and others can sit down. And it really goes back to what you spoke about earlier, Andy. It's about the customer. What is the best fit and need of the customer? And we look at things like their existing infrastructure, we look at things as uh how ready is their data, and then what's appropriate for them. And we we work with everybody, we're technology agnostic, but that's why we have strong partnerships. And we really just center on the customer who's the best for for our customer.
SPEAKER_01:You know, I think that's wonderful. And I I'll tell you, I'm so impressed with your company. I'm so impressed that the people the partners that that have been up here tonight and talked, and we just had a great time. It's great that you joined us. Thank you, and thank you again for this event. Best to you and your company and your partners, and and thank you that you're gonna help guide us into this new transformation called AI. Yeah, because we're gonna need support and help, and and especially people we can trust.
SPEAKER_04:Well, thank you, Andy. I really appreciate that. It's great, great to uh chat.
SPEAKER_01:All right, thank you. We're having such a great event tonight. Slotom is here, and they have their innovation day, and we have got people all over in this room. We've got partners of Slotem here, they're having a great time, and we're just talking the future of innovation. We've we've been talking AI, we've been having all such great things. And Joseph is joining me tonight. Joseph, welcome. Thank you.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you very much. Thanks, Rabbit.
SPEAKER_01:Tell us about you and your company.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, yeah. So uh my name is Joseph Paul Clifton, and me and a couple of co-founders that would be Ty Dennison and Ben Poffley. They have um we've started a company called Acra Collective. We're an AI consultancy. We really got a couple of key focuses, education, some strategy, and then some implementation, basically.
SPEAKER_01:So why are you attending tonight?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, we we found that tonight looked like it would have a great participant list just to get connected with. Like I said, Accra Collective. We are a collective group. We've got a lot of talent on one side that we are connected to, that we have supporting us, building things out. We also want to have partners on the other side we can hand projects off to, we can work with as partners that can also uh interact with us and give us some of the state of the industry, and here sound like seemed like a really great place to get some of that.
SPEAKER_01:It hasn't been a great night for you.
SPEAKER_02:It's been it's been very good. We've we've made some really good connections with Solomon and Okta and a couple of other ones around here.
SPEAKER_01:I'd say some aggression, Solomon's got great partnership tonight. It's obvious everyone is so excited about it, they're so excited about the future and all the things that's going on, especially around the AI. Absolutely. That's been a big conversation tonight.
SPEAKER_02:Well, it's it's it's uh it really is the conversation right now, right? Yeah, um, every everyone is talking about it, and and we are uh really enjoying the engagement just broadly, nationally, and globally, uh, around generative AI and what is possible, what we can do to empower people moving forward.
SPEAKER_01:You know, it's it's it's really exciting times. Yeah, it's extremely exciting, it is. And um, and you know, when you you talk about generative AI, that is so important. And if you don't mind, just for some of our guests, it's just learning or stepping into this whole AI realm. Talk just a bit about generative AI.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, what I would say is that we've actually found there's quite a bit of a gap around the education. There, there's uh technology broadly has mixed up terms for a long time. It's caused it pretty to be pretty difficult for people that don't already have their roots in technology to understand what all the AI stuff is. So that's why we've kind of focused on education. Some of the building blocks that we decided really really anchor generative AI are looking at what does it do for you as an individual and then at a as a corporate entity. And we've we've broken that down into a couple of things. One is tasks. Generative AI can just go out and do a task for you. That's task, right? Right. Then it can also craft things for you, it can help you by enabling creativity that you wouldn't craft by yourself. Right. Put this image together for me or generate some of this content for me, helps you think through a thing and craft stuff out. And then the newest piece that that people are starting to hear a lot more about is this what what they call the agentic piece. And we're we're anchoring that on a thing called orchestration. That's the ability to take some of those crafting pieces and those tasking pieces and putting them all together so that you can actually get some support uh or some release from some of the work or some of the tasks or some of the crafts that you need done on a pretty consistent basis.
SPEAKER_01:Well, great job on that. Thank you. Thank you. Uh perfect. And and um the other question is as we think about this huge new movement, if you will, yeah, that's taking place. Is there any concerns you have?
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely, there are some concerns for generative AI. Yeah. Uh I think it's very interesting that you asked that question. Uh uh to be fully transparent. Uh, you know, we got to talk for a minute before. We didn't talk about this before this, and I and I want to kind of plant a flag here. I want to say it's really interesting. There are some concerning areas, which is why we think education is so important. We think it's really important to enable people that are not bad actors around what generative AI is and what it is not, and how to be active in that industry in a positive and compelling way.
SPEAKER_01:Well, when I when you talked about education earlier, your company, that's I was backdooring in so you can help with that. Exactly. That's that's where I'm the point. That's yeah, you got it. Which you know, I because I think we need you in that space because you know, we want the people here, they're very ethical, they're great business people, they're great businessmen and women, yeah. And they want to be ethical in their business, yeah, but yet in this new space we're in monitoring, yeah, we need guidance.
SPEAKER_02:Exactly.
SPEAKER_01:And that's what you bring.
SPEAKER_02:That's what we we can bring. Yeah. And I I I'd say quickly at the executive level, we do that a lot, but we also do it at a frontline implementer level, right? You've got people who who are working on spreadsheets every day, and we can help you know how to do that the right way.
SPEAKER_01:I'm at the Slotom Innovation Day at the record, and it is so exciting. This room is packed with people and ideas and suppliers and information, people around the world. And with me today, John Mathis. Welcome. Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. Uh and you're with Slotem?
SPEAKER_10:I am with Slalom. Okay, tell us what you do. Uh so I focus on our data analytics team. So we help build solutions for clients that usually involve integrating data, analyzing data, ultimately to drive a better customer experience, a more profitable enterprise, and ultimately drive sort of a business result.
SPEAKER_00:That sounds like exciting. It's a lot of fun. It sounds like a lot of fun.
SPEAKER_10:Yeah. That's the best part about consulting, right? Every client's different, every project is different. And you get behind some of these companies and peek behind the curtain and how their business works, how they make money, what their strategy is is fascinating. And then when you can enable that and help them do it better, that's like even more rewarding.
SPEAKER_01:Well, you know, that that is so interesting. And I tell you, don't don't we live in a great time now. Technology, AI, all of that's happening, coming down. Now, let's talk AI for a moment. Okay. This is the the if I understand correctly, this event is focused around AI.
SPEAKER_10:I would say AI plays a heavy portion. Okay. Or AI adjacent, maybe too, because there's a lot of other things beyond the actual technology of AI that matter deeply as well. Right.
SPEAKER_01:Well, okay, Slom's a great company. You're just all over the country. And we we we got representatives from all over the country here from Slalom, right? And then we have other representatives here for other things. Can you name a few of the companies that are sure?
SPEAKER_10:Yeah, we have a number of uh the major cloud providers who think about like Google, um, Databricks, companies like that that provide really incredible technology. We use their technology to deliver, and so we work with them for our customers together, and we met them to events like this because their technology innovation is what we use to actually go deliver the results.
SPEAKER_01:Great. Well, is you have a great crowd here tonight. People are are me are walking through all the booths. And I mean, it's awesome. What a great event. Now, as quickly, as we think about the future for a moment, what are you working on?
SPEAKER_10:I think right now there is so much going on in the area and it's changing so rapidly. The biggest issue that people are facing is like, what do I do? Because it's just coming at you so quickly. So right now, a lot of it is what should my strategy be and where do I focus? Um, and like our guidance is focus on what's practical, what can actually drive a result. There's a lot of fancy technology that can do really cool things, but if it's not actually moving the needle for your people or your customers, what is the result of that? And so usually it's how can we focus on a particular type of use case or situation that can be improved with these technologies, and then going and doing it and starting something small that you can go to relatively quickly instead of spending three, four, five months to try and get something launched.
SPEAKER_01:Right, right. Well, it that sounds wonderful. Now, as you one more question, as you sure, as you again take take this global view, what are what are some major issues today facing companies and how can you help them?
SPEAKER_10:Yeah, I mean I think the biggest issue is where to focus right now. There's just so many different things coming at them. So sort of prioritization and being real around it. There's also a huge change. I think five, seven, ten years ago, people didn't think at all about data privacy, like who owns my data, how is my data being used, is it being used ethically? There's a huge amount of things that could be done technically that companies don't do because of you know their ethics guidelines and how they want to operate. And so ensuring that they retain their customers' trust or their employees' trust is usually a top priority. And then on top of it, there's a lot of regulation too, whether, you know, in each individual country across the globe. Um, so making sure they stay compliant is another major concern.
SPEAKER_01:That would get them wonderful. Now, SLAM can help with all that.
SPEAKER_10:Yeah, we work sort of we're a full service consultancy, so we're half business management consulting, half technology consulting. Um, and as I was saying earlier, the the human side is usually often overlooked. It's um maybe you have a great new AI tool or capability, but if your people don't know how to use it or when to use it or the best way to use it, you're probably not gonna drive as much change as you want, even if the technology is flawless. So a lot of our projects involve both our technologists as well as our management consultants to help drive an ultimately a successful project.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, you heard it from John. It is awesome. Check you gotta check Slalom out, and website is uh www.slalom.com. That's it. Okay, well you heard it. Hey, done. Thank you for joining us. Yeah, have a great comfort. My guest is Isaac. Isaac, welcome. Thank you. It's so good, man. And you're from you all the way from Dallas, Texas. That's right. Yes, yes, love you. Great. Okay, now uh you have a booth here, and how's your how's it been tonight for you? Have you had a lot of people visiting?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it's been great. Um talked to different companies. Um I'm I'm a solution architect at Databricks, um, and so I serve various customers in the retail and CPG industry. So it was nice to chat with different folks from different backgrounds, hear their business challenges, and talk to them about how Databricks can can solve those.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, well, that sounds exciting. Now, when you're when you're talking about retail, that's my background, Walmart. So, okay, now I have got to go there with you a bit. So, how how you can make this much more easier? So, tell us a bit about your company and then any product that you would like to talk about. Okay?
SPEAKER_03:So share that with our viewers. Sure. So Databricks is the data and AI company. Our mission is to democratize data and AI, which essentially means we want to put data and AI tools in the hands of as many people as possible. So both technical and business users. Um we have what's called the data intelligence platform. Um built on the data lake house, which is essentially combines the best of the best of both worlds between a data warehouse and a data lake. Um so we create an open ecosystem where people can bring their data from wherever, um, and then on top of that, plug it into AI to unlock business value. So uh one of the products that we were demoing is called Agent Bricks. Okay. Agent Bricks is our no-code, low-code tool for building, testing, evaluating, governing, and deploying AI agents. Um so we have a tool set up where non-technical business users can choose different agentic use cases and get into production in less than 10 steps.
SPEAKER_01:Less than 10 steps. So you have simplified this process.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, exactly.
SPEAKER_01:Every retailer likes that. Absolutely. Okay, because it's all about productivity, right? Now, as you have been here tonight and you've talked to potential clients, customers, and and some other partners that are here with with what what are you hearing? What what's what what are people talking about at night? What's on top of the minds here?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Um, I would say there's a few things. One is AI, generative AI, AI agents is the top of everybody's mind. Right. Um, it's sort of the buzzword around the whole world now. Yeah, and businesses, specifically in retail, are trying to figure out what specific use cases should we plug Gen AI into and what other use cases should we not, right? Um and in in particular, there's a gap between wanting to experiment, like with science projects with AI, but also there's a gap between that and taking that to production. Um so a lot of the challenges that we've heard is around like complexity. So every week there's a new model that comes out, there's a new technique that people want to use. And so it creates decision paralysis with customers because they don't know which new shiny AI model they should go with. Um and Databricks or Agent Bricks helps us solve that.
SPEAKER_01:Right. So you're able to help guide that potential customer or client, you have based on their need, you help guide them to your product. Yes. And and okay. Now, once you s what once your company sells this product to a customer or client, how do how does that work? How do you how does your company go in and support that?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Uh so I'm a solution architect on the account. Um, I also work with an account executive, more on the business side. And so we help to, of course, build build those trusted relationships, become that trusted advisor to figure out where are those high-value use cases that we can come in and help. Um then from there we have a team of specialists that can come in and build out the use case. Um we have our own professional services arm, and we also have a handful of partners in our ecosystem, Slalom being one of our top partners, um obviously. Yes, and so they they have Databricks expertise that they can be brought in at the project management level and the technical build out level.
SPEAKER_01:Right. Well, Slalom's a great company, it's obvious. We've we've we've I've talked with several people from Slalom uh tonight. Uh of course they're they're they've put this event on, it's been a great event, well attended, and we're so proud of that. Now, if someone wants to get a hold of Databricks, how does what how do they do that?
SPEAKER_03:Uh you can reach out to me, Isaac Key. Um I'm I'm on LinkedIn. Uh uh we are on all these social media platforms. Um we have if you go to databricks.com, uh we have an overview of all our different products, uh customer reference stories on there as well. Um but yeah, I would say you can reach out to me or you can go online.
SPEAKER_01:It's great to meet you. You're you have a very interesting company. It sounds like that you're just doing you're just really in a great space, especially in that retail and consumer package business, which is really growing. And and and both need a lot of support in improving their productivity and simplifying their business a bit for their team, team members and their associates. So it sounds like you've got a great product. This is Slotom Innovation Day, and I would tell you, this is a great company. We've got just a room full of people here, and they're the Slotom's partners are here, and they're talking to wonderful people, and one of the partners are here with me right now, Salesforce. Yes, sir. Wow, what a great company. It is, we appreciate you.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, and I'd echo that, Andy. This is uh just an awesome event. Turnout's been great, Bentonville's amazing, and just uh thanks to Saul for hosting us here.
SPEAKER_01:Great. Well, I'm so glad you guys. So I know the world knows Salesforce, okay?
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:But if there's that one person out there, then tell us about your company.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, well, I'm I'm not Matthew McConaughey, but if you watch the Super Bowl, he said something, something like, all right, all right, all right, AI, that's Salesforce. And that was the Super Bowl ad. Uh uh, but uh I would uh I might add a little more detail than our buddy Matt. Uh so we've been known historically for a series of enterprise apps, right? Right. Sales, service, marketing, commerce, data, collaboration, and just a suite of enterprise apps. Uh and then more recently we realized that's a whole bunch of tools that are a little disparate and they really need to be joined together with this new wave of consolidated data uh and artificial intelligence. Right. And so we've consolidated everything and really given a platform for business users to take all their data and make business friendly apps in a rapid-fire way.
SPEAKER_09:Wow, awesome. Arthur, what would you add? No, I'd say exactly that. Uh we take um we take an idea and we enable business users, tech, to take that idea and co-create to turn into production fast using our platform. Um Mark Benyoff, when we started, it was always a how do we make it as easy as buying a book in a bookstore online? So using our platform click.code to democratize what I think AI and data and enable a simple admin to what we showed today walking over is how can we have just a simple AI agent that has leads from a trade show? So it's really putting tools in the hands of uh end users, admins, and making their lives easier.
SPEAKER_01:Right. Wonderful. Well, I would tell you, if as we think about the future a bit, okay, because as I walked around the floor, there was a lot of conversation about the future.
SPEAKER_05:Yes, sir.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, as we think about that for a moment, what are some thoughts that you guys have about the future and and what are some concerns you may have too about that? And then how can Salesforce help with that? So talk to us about that.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:And Slalom, of course, too, because I know your partner's right.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, Slalom partner really well together.
SPEAKER_01:Right.
SPEAKER_05:Uh, and I I think like I'll I'll be blunt here, and I I don't think any of us know what the future is, and the pace of change today is faster than it has ever been. And so at Salesforce, as a way to proof against that, we've enabled that fast pace of change for our business users. And I'll just give you an example, Andy. Okay. Uh can I pull on my phone real quick?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, do it. Come on. So because you could have some potential clients listening in right now, leaning in and saying, I've got, I need something. Because it's not working.
SPEAKER_05:Yes, sir. Right. So on the way over here, uh, I wanted to capture leads at this event. Uh again, Slalom did an amazing job. I think we have about 150 attendees. We've had about 60 of them stop by our booth so far. It's been wonderful. Again, thanks to Slalom. Yeah. Uh shout out there. But uh, I wanted to capture leads. And uh you can call me a little lazy. I don't want to manually type in name, last name, L notes. Like that's boring for me. Uh and so Robin, our solution guy, and I collaborated and I said, Robin, can you make me an app, uh, an agentec app in 20 minutes? Uh and thankfully Robin said yes. Uh, and so I'll I'll show you what a partner. Yeah, it is, but I'll let me show you. And then I'd love for Robin to explain sort of how he built that. Please. And I would say how he coded it, but as a preview, he didn't code a thing. We made it easier. So I've got my app here, and I can just say in natural language, hey, uh Tom here. I'm at the conference and I want to make a lead. Uh I just met Joe Smith. Joe's email is josmith at gmail.com. And I want a reminder to follow up with Joe next week. He works for Acme Inc. And so this is a good thing.
SPEAKER_09:Because right now what's happening is Tom's interacting. So we have that agent in the background that is essentially becoming his digital assistant. Um stepping in and on behalf, it's creating a lead, but it also has the possibility of sending an email, uh, creating a task inside the CRM. And so what we see right now, you kind of mentioned what we see with customers, is everyone is thinking about, well, how can we incorporate AI into our flow of work? The challenges there are it's not easy when we think about where the data comes, what LLM, what system should the AI be in. And so Tom kind of hit the nail on the head what Salesforce does is we democratize it by allowing ourselves to take a take a challenge, such as how do we capture leads from a trade show, use our declarative tools to make it extremely easy to construct an agent, have it be deployed on the phone, and then that allows Tom now to have a digital assistant. So I think we're seeing the world of where AI is very expensive. Yeah. Um we have this opportunity now to give tools and a toolbox to make it extremely easy for both business users and tech users to interact with AI and the flow at work.
SPEAKER_06:That's amazing.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, so that is amazing. Let me add, Andy, Robin went over my head there because he's the smart one, clearly, and I'm super thankful to have him around.
SPEAKER_01:You know, okay, so you guys are awesome. Yeah, you guys are based in Dallas, right? Yes, sir. Yes, sir. And so it if people want to get a hold of you, push you up. How do they do it? Salesforce.com?
SPEAKER_05:Salesforce.com, uh, if you want. I'm T T-H-I-G-P-E N at Salesforce.com. Please email me directly. Uh more than happy to help out.
SPEAKER_01:All right, you guys are great. Well, we're having a great event. We really do. We appreciate Solomon and all their work to make this happen. Yeah. It's been great to meet you guys. You know, what you guys need to do is uh jump on doing missions and do a podcast, and you can go with C Court. I'll give you a lot more time, you know?
SPEAKER_05:And uh but anyway, so can I make one more plug-in? Absolutely. Yeah, go for it, Tom. Again, Solomon did a great job having partners here. I noticed Google, I noticed Databricks, and you asked about challenges earlier. Yeah. One of the challenges that that we see is um, in addition to the pace of change, the disparate data sources uh and how hard it is to really make a business decision when I got some data in Databricks, some in GCP, some on Salesforce. So a couple of years ago, we created the Zero Copy Initiative, and we now have, along with Google Databricks, a bunch of other partners, zero dollar, zero copy data sharing across all these providers so customers truly have access to all their data to create these agents and really make better decisions. So really proud of that.
SPEAKER_01:You know, again, as I said at the front of our uh short visit together, it's a great company. And you guys are doing a great job. Thank you. Thank you for being here. And I again, I'm serious. Uh, we need to talk more and uh talk a bit more about all these things in more detail. Again, thank you so much for being here. Again, we thank Salem for all their work tonight. Andrew, I'm gonna say right up front, thank you, thank you for inviting Doing Business in Bentonville to the UN tonight. It means so much to me. We've had just a great time. I want to give a shout out to Emily. Wow, she has done such a great job. I mean, she has just been everywhere and so helpful. So, Emily, thank you so much for all your great work tonight. We really appreciate you. So, Andrew, um, what a night. I'll tell you, we've had so many of your partners here on the podcast. We've had many of the your associates here tonight talking about this great company. So, you tell us about why tonight, why did you do this, and then then we'll talk a bit about the company, okay? Sure.
SPEAKER_07:And I guess probably the easiest way to say uh it was when I I went up to a couple of the clients in the area and they asked me, why or how do you do this and when are you doing it again? And I was I was very excited to hear that. Yeah, but it's people getting value out of it, and it's really establishing networks. One of the things that that we pride ourselves on is really adding value to our clients, and that's making connections, it's working with people, and it's not necessarily about selling. So none of our partners here, all we asked them was to bring innovation and a laptop to display it. Um Emily, as you heard previously, and Tessa set everything up here for them to go. And um to the person, I didn't catch anyone that wasn't really intrigued and didn't go by every one of the stations to see what what's next. Right. And I think that's really where we're trying to take our clients is what's next. So maybe a little long, but uh really excellent.
SPEAKER_01:No, that's excellent. No, that was excellent, Andrew. You know, my my take when Emily walked me around and introduced me to each of your partners here tonight and had a few minutes with them, it was so obvious of their commitment they were here, but yet how happy they were here and working together with your company and them. And they spoke it almost the same, you know. And that doesn't just happen, that happens through a lot of great work behind the scenes. So, gratulations on that.
SPEAKER_07:Well, and I and I'd love to take some credit for it, but you know, we have uh Zach here. Zach runs our alliances and partnerships, and they are truly symbiotic relationships. I mean, you you don't see friction points between the folks that we have here. We are agnostics, so sometimes we have people that do similar things, but they always know that we're looking out what's best for the client, and if we can help them with their technology into there, they have always seems to work out really well.
SPEAKER_01:Well, that leads us in about your company. Tell our guests about our viewers about your company.
SPEAKER_07:Well, you know, if you go by the website, they'll say how we're fiercely human, uh, we're local. Um, but what I I really like is that we are there to deliver value. We're looking for the hardest problems. We're trying to find those areas where we can help our clients accelerate. Um, we don't sell hardware, we don't sell software. We we give you know results to the clients in areas where perhaps they're not comfortable yet. You know, you saw a lot about AI and agentics stuff here. What we're doing is really practical application of that. And so many times you see innovation, but innovation that goes nowhere because people don't do the change management side of it. So, really the organizational change, the skill sets, the training, and the actual innovation all from one company that really helps deliver results. And so it's, I mean, I'm honored really to be a part of the organization.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I'll tell you, I've I you know, I I feel the same way after the night, and the thing that I would underline what you said, there's just two things. One, you said we work on their biggest problems. Companies need someone that they can trust that will work on their biggest problems, and the answer is your company, Solomon. That's the answer. That's what I've heard tonight. Over and over and over, people have have said that your team and then even your partners that are here, they talked about trust. Then they talked about the commitment that Solomon has to work together to solve the biggest problem. And I don't know anyone that in the inside of their company. As we wrap up, one more, just one more thing. I'd like to ask you, what would you like to say to your potential clients or customers? What would you like to say to them?
SPEAKER_07:If you've got, you know, rate fatigue, if you if you feel like that you have partnerships that aren't really delivering the results that you're looking for, give us an opportunity to prove ourselves. Let us allow you to talk to some of our other clients. It's it's hard to find customer love and net promoter scores like what we deliver, and it's because we're sincerely looking out for the benefits and the outcomes that our customers do.
SPEAKER_01:You've met Andrew, you've met so many of their partners and so many other solemn uh team members tonight. Um, again, great company. I'm glad you're here. Uh look forward to the future. And as I already said, let's get you into uh doing business in Bentonville studio and let's do a podcast and let's even talk more about the detail of your company. Is that a good deal? What do you think?
SPEAKER_07:It's a good deal, and Andy, it's just an honor being with the legend.
SPEAKER_01:Oh yeah, man. All right. Thank you. Thank you so much to honor our guests. It's been a great evening. Thank you again for our inviting us uh here tonight. Thank you, everyone. Have a good evening. Great job.