Meet the Equals11 team at Dreamforce 2026
Dreamforce generates a lot of conversation about what is next. The harder part starts when it is time to build any of it.
Jim Marascio, Principal and CEO, and Kenneth Lopez, Principal and Chief Delivery Officer, are heading back to San Francisco for Dreamforce 2026 with the Equals11 team. September 15 to 17. They are going with a short list of questions pulled from client conversations this year rather than a blank agenda.
The timing is the part worth paying attention to. Dreamforce lands in the middle of Q4 planning, and for a lot of mid-market companies it lands a few weeks ahead of the Salesforce renewal. So the CFO ends up weighing new capability against a platform bill for capability the company already owns and has not deployed. That conversation goes better with someone who has watched these announcements land inside a real mid-market org.
What Dreamforce 2026 is built around
Salesforce is running the 2026 event on one idea. The Agentic Enterprise, described on the event site as powered by you and amplified by agents. Three days at Moscone Center with more than 1,600 breakout sessions, over 50 keynotes, 150-plus hands-on trainings, and 240-plus community roundtables. Marc Benioff opens Tuesday morning. Dreamfest takes over Wednesday night. Selected sessions stream on Salesforce+ for anyone who cannot travel.
Nobody sees 1,600 sessions. What you carry home depends almost entirely on what you walked in looking for, which is why the agenda matters more than the attendance.
What we are watching
Three sessions map directly to what mid-market Salesforce owners are stuck on this year. Data 360: Your Trusted Foundation for Agentforce runs Tuesday and gets at the question underneath every stalled agent pilot, which is what the agent is actually reading from. Architecting Agentforce: The 5 Design Pillars to AI Success, also on Tuesday, is the architecture conversation that should happen before activation rather than after. And on Thursday, How to Strategize, Pitch, and Showcase ROI for Your AI Journey is the one the CFO cares about, because a capability without a business case does not survive a Q4 budget review.
Two more are on the list. Secure AI at Scale: Multi-Agent Design in Action runs Wednesday, and it matters for anyone in healthcare or financial services where an unguardrailed agent action is a compliance problem. Then True to the Core on Thursday, which is a live Q&A with the product leaders. That session is where you find out what is actually shipping versus what is on a slide.
Four questions worth answering while you are there
For a company already invested in Salesforce, there is rarely a shortage of things you could do. The work is deciding what earns a place on the roadmap.
Start with what needs to be cleaned up first, because duplicate records and drifted definitions block every feature announced this September. Then look at where disconnected systems are slowing the business down, which is usually the point where an expensive manager spends a morning moving data between Salesforce and the ERP by hand. From there, ask where AI creates measurable value rather than a demo, meaning work you can name a number against. And finally, sort what makes the roadmap now from what can wait, because a Q4 with four priorities has none.
Those are the conversations the team is going to San Francisco to have. If you are heading to Dreamforce and want to walk through your Salesforce roadmap, your AI plans, or the gaps getting in the way of growth, get in touch before the week starts. Calendars fill fast, and the good slots go early.
If you are not going
Salesforce+ carries the keynotes and a slice of the sessions, so the announcements are not gated behind a plane ticket. The readiness work is the same either way. Duplicate records, stage definitions that drifted three years ago, and automation nobody documented will block every feature announced this September, and none of that gets easier by waiting until October to look at it.
Take the announcements back to a plan
The week after Dreamforce is where most of the value gets lost. A list comes home, it goes into a deck, and by November nothing on it has an owner. Pick one item. Not the most impressive one. The one where you can name the person doing the manual work today and name the object the feature would read from. Scope it against your real environment. Put a name and a date on it inside Q4.
Frequently asked questions
When and where is Dreamforce 2026?
Dreamforce 2026 runs September 15 to 17, 2026, at Moscone Center in San Francisco, with selected sessions streaming on Salesforce+. The program covers more than 1,600 breakout sessions, over 50 keynotes, and 150-plus hands-on trainings, all built around what Salesforce calls the Agentic Enterprise.
Will Equals11 be at Dreamforce 2026?
Yes. Jim Marascio, Principal and CEO, and Kenneth Lopez, Principal and Chief Delivery Officer, will be there with the Equals11 team across all three days. Meetings are booked in advance. Reach out through the contact page, and we will find a time that fits around your session schedule.
Is Dreamforce worth attending if we already run Salesforce?
It is worth attending with a defined purpose. Teams that arrive with two or three named operational problems get real value from the partner conversations and the hands-on labs. Teams that arrive to see what is new leave with a wish list. The pass and the travel cost the same either way.
Should we wait for Dreamforce before fixing our Salesforce org?
No. The remediation work is identical in September, and it was identical in June. Orgs that clean up their data and document their processes first can act on the roadmap in Q4. Orgs that wait spend Q4 finding out why they cannot. The free Agentforce Readiness Score at equals11.ai scores where you stand in a few minutes.
