Unlearn old tech recipes or risk decline in the AI era, warns Salesforce’s Vala Afshar

At Dreamforce 2025 in San Francisco, Salesforce’s Chief Digital Evangelist Vala Afshar said that the world must “unlearn most of the recipes” of the past to stay relevant in the age of artificial intelligence, warning that companies that fail to adapt could be left behind.

Speaking to CNBC-TV18’s Aishwarya Anand on the sidelines of the event, Afshar said that the current wave of agentic AI marks a major inflection point in the evolution of technology. “For the first time in history, software is not just a tool; it can now execute and mimic some of the tasks that humans perform to conduct their jobs,” he said.

Afshar explained that Salesforce’s innovation journey in AI began with predictive capabilities, moved into the generative phase, and is now entering the agentic era — where humans and AI agents can work together and co-create value. “I once thought cloud computing would be the most important technology of my lifetime. I now view AI and agentic AI as the electricity of the 21st century,” he said.

The Salesforce evangelist stressed that accountability and trust must remain central to technological progress. “Humans will always be accountable. It’s not technology that does good or bad — it’s the people behind the technology,” Afshar noted, adding that every product at Salesforce is first evaluated through an ethical lens before development begins.

On the role of empathy in an AI-driven world, Afshar said customer experience remains at the heart of business success. “To stay relevant, you have to deliver value at the speed of need,” he said, sharing how even advanced AI systems must be designed to sense human urgency and emotion.

Afshar also highlighted India’s growing importance in Salesforce’s global AI ecosystem. He said the company’s workforce in India has grown sixfold between 2022 and 2025, and that the country now ranks third globally in the number of unicorns. “India will play an incredibly pivotal role in the success of Salesforce and our ecosystem,” he said.

Reflecting on his decade-long association with Dreamforce, Afshar said technology leaders must now rethink their approach to innovation. “If you’re not operating like a chef, constantly unlearning old recipes, you may ignore an ingredient that could either keep your restaurant running or shut it down,” he said, warning that businesses unwilling to evolve risk decline in the AI era.

At Dreamforce this year, the discussions around AI have gone beyond code and computation, focusing instead on purpose, empathy, and human storytelling — a shift that underscores Afshar’s belief that the future of AI will be defined as much by values as by algorithms.

Watch accompanying video for entire conversation.