Adapting to User Expectations in Tech

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Brinkal Janani, Director of Product Management at Salesforce. Join us as we chat about the future of AI-powered customization that’s coming with Generative Canvas.

You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Brinkal. 

Build dynamic experiences for users with no code

Brinkal has always been fascinated by how admins can build dynamic user experiences without code. He was on the original team of engineers that built Dynamic Forms, and as a product manager, he’s been leading the charge on Lightning App Builder and AI-generated apps.

Today on the pod, we’re going to take a sneak peek at what Brinkal’s working on right now. Think of all of this as one big Forward looking Statement but right now, they’re calling it Generative Canvas.

How admins can create AI-powered dynamic layouts with Generative Canvas

I’ve been in the ecosystem long enough to remember how much of a game-changer things like Lightning Forms, Lightning Page Builder, and Dynamic Forms were for admins. These tools put admins in the driver’s seat to guide users to the insights they need. However, as Brinkal points out, it’s difficult to anticipate what users will need in terms of data and workflows.

The concept of Generative Canvas is to leverage AI agents to go beyond static user interfaces to something more dynamic and responsive. The user prompts an agent that responds with Lightning Components that can be slotted directly into the UI.

As an admin, you build the agents, connect the relevant data, and Generative Canvas takes care of the rest. Suddenly, without any coding, you’ve built AI-powered dynamic layouts for your users.

Generative Canvas in action

You really have to see a video of Generative Canvas in action to get how big this is going to be. But imagine a team is collaborating for a sales meeting. You can drop the pitch deck into the UI and ask for an outline to work from. Another person can pull up data about the customer from Data Cloud, and maybe a chart built from public data showing growth in the market. And this is just scratching the surface of what Salesforce Admins will be able to build with no code.

If all of this is exciting to you, make sure to listen to the full episode for more from Brinkal. And don’t forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast to catch us every Thursday.

Podcast swag

• Salesforce Admins on the Trailhead Store

Learn more

• Generative Canvas demo video
• Help Article: Visualize Your Data with Generative Canvas (Preview)
• Release Notes: Generative Canvas (Preview)

Admin Trailblazers Group

• Admin Trailblazers Community Group

Social

• Brinkal on LinkedIn
• Salesforce Admins on LinkedIn
• Salesforce Admins on X
• Mike on Bluesky social
• Mike on Threads
• Mike on X

Full show transcript

Mike Gerholdt:
This week on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we’re diving into the future of AI-powered customization with Brinkal Janani. Now Brinkal is a product manager here at Salesforce and he’s leading the charge on Lightning App Builder and AI-generated apps. Today, specifically we’re talking about Generative Canvas, forward-looking statement. I bet it’s going to get renamed. So we’re going to call it Generative Canvas for now, but literally watch the video that’s in the show notes. This thing is so cool because it’s going to reimagine how admins, how our users can interact with data and build dynamic experiences. And my two most favorite words, without code. Now, before we jump in, I want to make sure you’re subscribed to the Salesforce Admins Podcast. That way when a new episode like this drops, boom, you can listen to it. I don’t want you to miss out, so be sure to pay attention in whatever app you are using to either press that follow or subscribe button. So with that, let’s get Brinkal on the podcast.

So Brinkal, welcome to the podcast.

Brinkal Janani:
Thanks, Mike, for having me.

Mike Gerholdt:
Well, we’re fresh off the heels of TDX and with AI and everything going on, I feel like the metaphor I’ve used of how fast technology changing is jumping out of a plane, it’s moving very fast. I feel like it’s jumping out of a plane and skydiving superfast towards the earth because with AI, everything’s changing. And we’re going to talk about some of the really cool stuff that you’re working on on the platform, but let’s get started with just learning a little bit more about Brinkal and what you do at Salesforce. So why don’t you tell us what you do and some of the stuff that you work on?

Brinkal Janani:
Sure. Mike, as you guys know, I’m Brinkal Janani and I’ve been at Salesforce for a little over than nine years now, and throughout my career at Salesforce. I’ve played various roles. I started my career as a software engineer in test, eventually transitioned to full stack software engineer, and now I’m a product manager overseeing a couple of product portfolios, namely Lighting App Builder and generating apps using AI. And that’s where my focus is right now.

Mike Gerholdt:
Yeah, I feel like everybody at Salesforce working on AI stuff, right?

Brinkal Janani:
Yeah. And I’m glad to see whatever we’re building at Salesforce is for the better. So I’m glad that to give the analogy, but that also means we are doing something that’s fast-paced and would provide incremental value to our customers.

Mike Gerholdt:
Absolutely. So you want to talk about, and this is where I will insert forward-looking statement because I feel like this is probably going to change names. So as of this recording, it’s currently known as what, Generative Canvas? Is that right?

Brinkal Janani:
That is correct, yes.

Mike Gerholdt:
Okay. Let’s talk about as known as Generative Canvas right now.

Brinkal Janani:
Yeah, so I’m glad to talk about this project in particular because there’s a history to it. I don’t know if most of you know this or not, but I’m familiar that admins love concepts such as Dynamic Forms, Lightning Pages and Lightning App Builder. I mean, those are some of the popular features that admins love to play and use. And one of the fun fact that I wanted to also share was I was one of the original engineers in the team who built Dynamic Forms when it went tiered. So I have quite a bit of understanding on the expectations that admins have from the no-code tools like Lightning App Builder and the experiences they ship to our end users.

And for years I’ve seen Salesforce admin utilize technologies such as Lightning App Builder, Dynamic Forms, even Page Layouts to control how the UI appears, period. And these no-code tools are the best and have been the best in what they do, but it’s also nearly impossible to anticipate the full spectrum that the end users would need in terms of data and workflows, which is where Generative Canvas as a technology becomes really important. It unlocks a whole new way of interacting with data and workflow. So the general concept of Generative Canvas is, it goes beyond static user interfaces to more interactive and dynamic ones where you’re talking to an agent and having those responses stored as Lightning components on the layout. That’s the crux of it.

Mike Gerholdt:
Yeah, this is one of those where the audio podcast has limitations, but I was watching the video and I’m thinking what you’re working on is so far into the future because where we’re at now with agents and admin, building agents is we add the agent, enable them, and they can be anywhere in Salesforce and we just ask them a text question. But this is actually really building a visual, well you call it a Canvas, a visual Canvas of chats plus also text and documents, right, meeting notes?

Brinkal Janani:
Yeah, that is correct. I think what would really help understand what the concept is, it’s a good example. A good example that we are starting off from is tackling meeting preparation use cases. We all have been in situations where we have back-to-back schedules where we don’t even get enough time to see who we are meeting next. And I think that’s true for most of us who will be listening in into this podcast, or have been in this situation.

So imagine a sales executive who is handling multiple accounts and is literally in back-to-back situations with meetings when it comes to talking to these accounts and customers. And what it really is, and it’s what you’ve seen with our customers, is like a very personalized approach, a personalized pitch. And executives not having enough time to prep that pitch, or even prepare for that meeting, has been the biggest disadvantage.

And even if they do get time, they usually go to multiple UIs or even leverage multiple tools to be able to create that insight, which is why this was the first use case we felt is the best fit to tackle with Generative Canvas. Because Generative Canvas will make it super easy for any executive starting with sales executives to focus on the job to be done, and not a tool. And the reason I say this is because it’s a single-page application where they are interacting with the agents on the backend.

And as I said, agents are responding via text, via components that you put and organize on the UI. And not just that, you can personalize this layout or UI by moving these responses/components around on the Canvas and even resizing them so it exactly fits the way you would have imagined the UI could look like and carry this UI into the meeting so you have something to talk about, you have talking points to break the ice, or even you have insights if you want to cross-sell or upsell any of our products. So I think that example really nails the value of what we are trying to achieve with Generative Canvas. And obviously it’s a start and we are going to grow from this use case to multiple other use cases, but hopefully this shows a value.

Mike Gerholdt:
So I think the really cool part is you’re thinking of quantitative and qualitative data because a lot of that, there’s quantitative data, there’s stuff that we can actually see in Salesforce. You brought up the sales example like number of opportunities or sum total of opportunities on this account. But the second part where your Canvas brings it together is all the qualitative data, which is all of that information, the chats, the extra documents, the insight that people need when they walk into a room to have that deeper level conversation as opposed to just the data that’s in front of them.

Brinkal Janani:
That is correct, and which is why I also feel like the future experiences is going to be both like a static experience and a dynamic one. I foresee living us in a very hybrid world where technology such as Generative Canvas will exist and coexist with technology such as Lighting Pages. To your point on Canvas, it’s beyond static data. You get these insights and summaries that AI is able to generate and piece from the vast pool of data that we have in Data Cloud and at Salesforce. And that’s the essence of it. Not just that, but once we start building in and start pulling data from public domain, you should be able to also get that data on the Canvas along with this data that’s stored in CRM in your org.

Mike Gerholdt:
Just help me elaborate on that. What would be data pulling from the public domain? What would be example of that?

Brinkal Janani:
Example would be I’d like to learn more about the competitors of my current account. What is people, what is accounts, and what are they doing? So using that data, just having that competitive analysis and the most present one, which can only be learned by pulling the data from the public domain, the sales executive can use this information and potentially create a cross-sell pitch or upsell pitch for the existing customer. Just like having that lens, having that view inside can really help them create a personalized pitch for the customers.

Mike Gerholdt:
Do you envision, and this is all me just thinking like, oh, this is kind of cool. So once somebody creates a Canvas, let’s say for an account, would you envision that they would go back to that and then of course it would live update? Because obviously if you’re pulling in news articles, it could do that. Like say six months comes down the line and the customer’s up for a renewal, you’d want to go back to that same Canvas that you used to close the deal. Right?

Brinkal Janani:
That’s a great point, Mike. And I think one thing that I also want you to touch about Generative Canvas is that this Canvas is, as you said, are persistent, which means once you create this Canvas, they are there, they’re part of your org and you can obviously revisit them. And obviously since Canvas is based on data, both static, and data coming from public domain, you would want to make sure they’re still relevant, right? Because even the record details might have changed, a number of little records might have changed, a whole lot of data. The data that existed when the Canvas was created might be completely different from what exists right now. So having an ability to refresh the Canvas entirely would be essential to keeping Canvas not just persistent, but also relevant.

Mike Gerholdt:
Yeah. Just on a non-Generative Canvas note, you mentioned in your intro that you’d also worked on Dynamic Forms, which I love to demo because I’m from that period of time when you couldn’t have Dynamic Forms. Well, you could. My Dynamic Form was two different page layouts and a workflow rule to flip the page layout. That was my faking Dynamic Forms. What got you into the visual part of working in technology? I mean, it’s obviously something you’re really good at and something you’re really passionate about.

Brinkal Janani:
So I think I need to share this. When I was interviewing with Salesforce, I was actually interviewing the day right before my wedding.

Mike Gerholdt:
Whoa.

Brinkal Janani:
And the only reason I did this, and I’ll never do this obviously again-

Mike Gerholdt:
Well, I hope you don’t have to get married again, in case your wife’s listening.

Brinkal Janani:
… is because I knew what Salesforce was doing and what it continues doing, it’s like creating these products which also create this community and just uplevels a whole lot of folks with the career insights and the career paths. And that is huge and that really resonated with me. And ever since my career at Salesforce, I’ve played multiple roles. My focus has always been delivering value for admins through no-code tools and specifically in my case, it’s Lighting App Builder. So being an engineer or being a product manager, my focus has been how do I help admins unlock value for the end users through UI using no-code tools? And that has been my problem statement from day one at Salesforce, and which is why I’m super exciting to see how the feature’s set, how the technology’s evolving from beyond the static layouts in terms of Lighting Pages to a more dynamic world where everything is personalized, everything’s AI driven. But as I said earlier, I also feel like the reality, the future is mostly hybrid with both technologies coexisting seamlessly.

Mike Gerholdt:
When you say hybrid, do you mean humans and technology or what do you mean by hybrid?

Brinkal Janani:
When I say hybrid, I think I see a world where it’s not completely one-sided where you only have static experiences or you only have dynamic experiences. When I say hybrid, I mean I see a world where you have both kind of experiences, probably start from a static experience to a Lighting Page, and eventually transition to a more dynamic experience through technology such as a new Canvas where you’re conversing with a tool, where you’re conversing with an agent, and updating the layout on the fly.

Mike Gerholdt:
Yeah, okay. And everything turned out okay at the wedding, I’m assuming?

Brinkal Janani:
Yes.

Mike Gerholdt:
Okay, good.

Brinkal Janani:
Safe to say that.

Mike Gerholdt:
Well, we know the job thing worked out because you’re on the podcast. So I don’t know I’ve ever had anybody on that interviewed before their wedding day. But good for you. When you sit down and think of all of the stuff that AI has to interact with now, and what you’re working on for this Generative Canvas, I’m not an engineer, but it’s very easy to get caught up in the here and now. How are you trying to plan for two to three year out technology that you might not even know exists and pull that in for the next generation of Generative Canvas? I mean, you have to know you’re building something out of Minority Report, right?

Brinkal Janani:
And I think that’s a great question again, Mike. To be honest with you, in this period of time, it’s extremely difficult to even look out two years out in advance just because the pace of technology is changing so drastically. But one thing that remains constant, regardless of what period we are in, are the problems that you want to solve for your customer base. Those are not going away. Eventually technology needs to be able to solve customer problems. So my focus always has been less on the technology itself, but figuring out the right problem set to solve in the right period of time using the right technology, and that’s what I want to achieve. And that’s what I’ve always been trying to achieve. Two different sets of technologies. So eventually in time technologies might change, but you still have the same problem set to deal with. And solving some problem sets might become just easier as in when technologies evolve. And I think we just need to keep on revisiting that list of problems that you have that you want to solve for your customers.

Mike Gerholdt:
Yeah. Last question, because I threw some hard ones at you, but you also came with the wedding thing. That’s pretty unexpected. When your… I mean, man, this is so, “In the future we’re going to have flying cars, but we don’t know.” When you’re planning through and looking for inspiration, this is the one thing that I think I learned it from a long time ago, I had a guest on the podcast that talked about board games and how they found inspiration in board games when they were creating a product in Salesforce. Because you work in very visual products, where do you go to find inspiration for ideas like for Generative Canvas that you’re working on?

Brinkal Janani:
That’s a tough question again, Mike,

Mike Gerholdt:
I don’t ask easy ones. Nobody comes on for easy questions.

Brinkal Janani:
All right. Point taken. I think the answer is two-folded, one is very personal and one is more cooperative. I’ll start with the personal one. I’m also father to a three-year-old daughter.

Mike Gerholdt:
Oh, boy.

Brinkal Janani:
And it’s been quite a journey, and mostly good. The reason she is an inspiration is because it’s so amazing to see how a creature of such small size can learn and absorb from visual experiences, from sensory experiences, so quick. And depending on what the experience is, the message that they learn is drastically different. And I know it seems like a very far-fetched connection, but if you tie the dots, it’s actually not that far. That is my daughter has been an inspiration just to keep my mindset more agile and rapidly adopt with changing environment and learn from it and keep on delivering value. So that has been something that I’m really grateful for. The other thing is a lot of people, we have an amazing set of people in the world right now and everybody’s doing something very amazing. So this thing connected, and in the know on what’s happening around you, also serves a good idea for inspiration.

Mike Gerholdt:
Yeah, no, I mean think a lot of us are still wrapping our heads around… I have a good friend of mine has a young child too, and he told me the other day, “He just ran up to the TV and started touching it, expecting it to do things,” much like his phone. And that to me is like, whoa, because that’s the world they live in. As a parting gift, if admins are definitely thinking about Agentforce, and AI, and everything that they can do in Salesforce, what would your best advice be for admins around getting ready for just AI and Agentforce and learning this new world that we live in?

Brinkal Janani:
I’ve always felt for Salesforce, the local community groups that we have, the Trailblazer communities that we have, Trainforce, TDX, and just like one-on-one engagement with product managers and MVPs have been a very solid ecosystem that has helped spread the knowledge and just up-level everyone by sharing knowledge, talking about the problems, and talking about how do we unlock, or solve for these problems using the technology that the Salesforce has right now. And I think it will be vital for us, especially product managers at Salesforce, being part of those communities and local groups and talking about the technology, the product that they’re working on, and helping customers connect with it. I think that would be a key, not just for success of products, but also for success of our customers.

Mike Gerholdt:
Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. I mean, it can be oftentimes very isolating to sit in your office and feel like you must be the only person working on this right now, and you’re not. And getting out to a user group and hearing stories and thinking, “Oh, you just need to change a couple terms, but we’re working on the same problem,” and seeing different approaches to things is always very helpful. Brinkal, thanks so much for being on the podcast. I can’t wait to have to go back and edit this once we rename Generative Canvas three or four more times.

Brinkal Janani:
And yeah, thanks Mike for having me. This has been special.

Mike Gerholdt:
No, it’ll be great. So that was a fun conversation with Brinkal. I’ll be honest, I don’t know of any podcast guests that may have interviewed the day before their wedding. Usually there’s things to do. You know what, Brinkal is like, “I’m going to work at Salesforce and build the future of applications.” So I’m so glad everything’s working out for him. But man, I can’t wait to see your reaction to some Generative Canvas stuff. Again, I’ll include all the links in the help and the video to watch it. If it works for you, go for it. I think they’re going to roll it out even farther, forward-looking statement. But this is going to be cool.

If you enjoyed this episode, hey, do me a favor, share it with a fellow admin. You can tap the dots in Apple Podcasts and click share episode and then that way you can post it on whatever social platform you are on or, text it to a friend. Or share it in your community user group. I’d be a fan of that. Of course, all the resources, including the transcript, are in the show notes for this episode. And where are those? Well, those are your one-stop shop for everything admin, which is admin.salesforce.com. Now don’t forget to join the conversation over in the Admin Trailblazer group. Don’t worry, the link is in the show notes. Where’s the show notes? Admin.salesforce.com. Look at that. It’s like we thought about this ahead of time. I promise we did. All right. Until next time, we’ll see you in the cloud.

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