Agentforce City: Translating Abstract AI into Record-Breaking Engagement
Role: Experiential Creative Director
Program Scope: Global brand activation scaling from Dreamforce 2025 to 17 events across 8 markets
Team: 12-person multidisciplinary creative team (design, motion, copy)
Internal Partners: Salesforce Strategic Events & Customer Marketing
Agency Partner: Left Field Labs
The Challenge
Salesforce needed to prove agentic AI wasn't vaporware. Across industries, skepticism was high. Customers understood the concept but couldn't see how AI agents would work in their specific business context. The gap between AI capabilities and customer adoption was widening.
We had nearly two football fields of space at Dreamforce 2025. The question: How do you turn abstract technology into something people can walk through, touch and immediately understand?
Agentforce City Dreamforce 25 Sizzle Reel.
The Solution
We built Agentforce City. A life-sized Main Street featuring 17 customer success stories across industries from healthcare to retail to government. Each storefront demonstrated live Agentforce workflows solving real business problems.
Not demos. Not Figma prototypes. Real AI agents that attendees could interact with to solve actual use cases.
The strategic framework:
Tactile proof over conceptual pitch.
Move customers from "I understand AI" to "I've used AI and it works."Customer stories over product features.
Let PepsiCo, lululemon, University of Chicago Medicine tell the story through their implementations.Scalable systems over one-time builds.
Create design guidelines that could travel globally without losing impact.
The Impact
Business Results
16,000 digital scans across three days of Dreamforce alone
6,200 visitors** through the experience
1,376% increase** over prior year engagement
17 customer activations delivered** (up from 6 the previous year)
32 live AI demos** across industries
Strategic Moments
Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, chose Agentforce City as the location for his Good Morning America interview. The space became the visual centerpiece of Salesforce's AI narrative globally.
According to Ariel Kelman (President and CMO at the time) and Erin Oles (EVP of Strategic Events & Executive Marketing), the activation "resulted in our highest engagement levels ever and fundamentally changed the quality of engagement and sales conversations."
Marc Benioff - CEO, Salesforce in Agentforce City
Global Scale
The program expanded from Dreamforce to 17 events across 8 markets:
Salesforce Proprietary Events
Tableau Conference, San Diego & CNX (Connections), Chicago
Salesforce World Tours:
London, NYC, Chicago, Sydney, Tokyo, Paris, Toronto,Third-party events:
NRF, Davos, Mobile World Congress, HIMSS
Erin Oles (EVP of Strategic Events & Executive Marketing) confirmed: "The response was unprecedented and the impact undeniable, which is why we're now scaling this experience globally as a cornerstone of our 2027 events strategy."
Recognition
Awards
GOLD - Customer Engagement Event
GOLD - B2B Event
GOLD - Multisensory Experience
SILVER - Event Storytelling
Event & Experiential - Finalist
Creative Use of Technology - Finalist
Physical & Digital Convergence - Finalist
Best Use of Event Technology - Finalist
Press
“Salesforce revamps Agentforce to try to pull customers across the gap between AI capabilities and AI adoption“
“Inside the making of Agentforce City”
“A city full of AI agents—and global brands using them in real life”
“The 7 Biggest Takeaways from the Dreamforce ‘25 Keynote”
Strategic Creative Execution
Narrative Story Structure
Each storefront followed a five-part story structure:
1. How is this customer becoming an Agentic Enterprise?
2. Pain Point / What's at Stake
3. Agentic Solution
4. Live Agentforce Use Case
5. Hands-on Interaction
This transformed passive engagement (infographics, static content, metaphors) into active problem-solving with real AI.
The Physical Environment
Agentforce City spanned a footprint the size of a football field and a half. The design recreated authentic brand environments with meticulous detail:
Equinox carried its signature eucalyptus scent and lighting
University of Chicago Medicine operated like an active clinical space
PepsiCo's bodega tracked inventory and changed promotions based on real-time conditions
A 14-foot Activation Tower with interactive touchscreens initiated each visitor's personalized journey. Three enormous pagodas represented the Agentforce power grid and denoted industry demo zones. Every structure, from pagodas to storefronts, was engineered for reusability with aluminum framing and modular steel supports designed to travel and be repurposed.
Scalability by Design
To support global expansion, I created tiered creative guidelines allowing teams to scale the program based on budget and space constraints:
Full storefront builds for flagship events
Modular wall systems for regional tours
Compact activations for third-party events
This system enabled 17 events across 8 markets in six months with consistent brand expression and creative quality.
Hands-On Engagement
Beyond observation, visitors participated directly:
DeVry University created LinkedIn-ready portraits
Lennar offered a home design interface
Pandora engraved charms for 400 attendees
57,000 themed pins were distributed across storefronts, tracking progress and rewarding those who completed all locations
Extended Role List
Salesforce Team Roles
Creative
Experiential Creative Director - Nathan Hackett
Messaging Creative Director - Steve Tornello
Creative Technology Director - Ed Park
Creative Project Manager - Kamarya Johnson
Industries Creative Lead - Kat Kasper
Industries Copy Lead - Dan Krewson
Creative Lead - Casey Ramsey
Art Direction -
Eduardo Henrique Damasceno, Lauren Jauco, Michelle Treinen, Jonathan Vornbrock
Copywriting and Storytelling -
Caleb Couturie, Audrey Khuner, Idia Leigh, Kevin Platt, Bella Pittinger
Third Party Creative
Third Party Creative Director - Devon Fenimore
Davos Creative Director - Jenny Yoon
Davos Creaive Project Manger - Joshua Lanada
Strategic Events
Strategic Events Director - Emily Johnson
Strategic Events Director - Jason Berena
Strategic Events Senior Manager - Megan Salaman
Third Party Strategic Events Manager - Melanie Aguilar
Partner agency
Brands Featured in Agentforce City
