The enterprise conversation around AI adoption is shifting from flashy demos to deployment at scale. While agent-based applications and infrastructure still draw buzz, a deeper theme is emerging: The need for agent supervision, observability and orchestration.

This year’s Dreamforce event captured that shift by showcasing how companies like Dell Technologies Inc., FedEx Corp. and PepsiCo Inc. are putting Salesforce Inc.’s agent technology to work. The spotlight has moved to real-world outcomes — agentic apps helping small retailers manage inventory, AI assistants boosting support volume without adding headcount, and measurable progress toward observability and orchestration, according to Crawford Del Prete (pictured), president of International Data Corp.

IDC’s Crawford Del Prete and Stackpane’s Sarbjeet Johal talk with theCUBE about the booming AI adoption trend and the ongoing quest for real business value.

“I’ve never seen a technology that’s moving faster,” he said. “People used to talk about cloud. That’s where you put the crappy apps at the beginning. That’s not where we are right now. Customers are running to this technology; they’re engaging. They were a little bit cynical, but I think Salesforce has made… my key takeaway is a credible take at how to make customers successful in this journey.”

During Dreamforce, Del Prete was joined by Sarbjeet Johal, founder and chief executive officer of Stackpane, in an AnalystANGLE segment with theCUBE hosts Dave Vellante and George Gilbert. During an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, the analysts explored Salesforce’s platform challenges, the booming AI adoption trend and the ongoing quest for real business value. (* Disclosure below.)

AI adoption surges as Salesforce emphasizes platform scale and enterprise value

AI adoption is fueling record growth across the tech sector, prompting IDC to raise its annual IT forecast, according to Del Prete. The surge is being driven by massive infrastructure buildouts, with enterprise IT spending climbing into double digits and some AI software segments spiking dramatically.

“We’re looking at about 14% growth this year, and that’s up from earlier in the year when we were expecting somewhere around 9 to 10% growth,” Del Prete said. “Now, that’s being fueled by a few areas. Obviously, it’s the infrastructure build-out, it’s enterprise IT …  If you just look at servers … and we’ve seen that number be in excess of 50% on a quarterly basis this year, so we’re seeing extremely strong enterprise IT growth.”

As the AI market expands, Salesforce faces a growing identity dilemma, according to Johal: Is it a platform provider or an applications company? Its emphasis on abstraction and low-code tools doesn’t always resonate with large enterprises or developer-heavy customers. To win over Fortune 500 firms — many of which operate like independent software vendors — Salesforce must highlight its core platform capabilities.

“They want to be a platform, but actually, the way they come out is a lot of abstraction on top of platforms,” Johal explained. “You still need that core platform which ISVs can use — and if you notice, the bigger customers work like ISVs, they have big budgets on the IT side, and they can hire thousands of developers, and they cook up their own stuff. To appeal to the bigger Fortune 500s, I think you need to highlight the platform side of things.”

Despite surging investment, many enterprises still approach AI adoption as a cost-cutting tool rather than a growth driver — a pattern that may undermine long-term returns. An upcoming IDC survey shows only 11% of organizations say most of their AI projects are delivering measurable business value, according to Del Prete.

“The magic happens when you can unlock revenue growth while you’re reducing costs,” he said. “Dell’s doing it on the back of the AI build-out … and today, what I’m seeing, what’s troubling, is too many companies are only focused on the expense side of the equation with AI, and that’s where I think Salesforce has an asset because they, through their [customer relationship management], can figure out the use case around making your leads better, warming up [and] training your Salesforce … in a new way. And they can unlock that message and use AI to drive growth.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of Dreamforce:

(* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Dreamforce. Neither Salesforce Inc., the sponsor of theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE