Salesforce captures the limits of AI in a Coca-Cola cooler

Even though it was intended as a bravura demonstration of the business potential of artificial intelligence (AI), Salesforce today perfectly captured the technology's current limitations with the aid of a Coca-Cola cooler cabinet. The demonstration was part of the vendor's customer kick-off event for its new financial year -- the first in a series that will set the tone for Salesforce's marketing from now until its annual Dreamforce conference in November. The event was an intimate affair, though watched remotely by a huge online audience, held in a conference room on the 23rd floor of Salesforce's temporary headquarters. Visible from the wall-to-ceiling windows was the towering skeleton across the road of San Francisco's tallest building, destined on completion to become the cloud giant's new corporate home. Co-founders CEO Marc Benioff and CTO Parker Harris blew out candles on a birthday cake to mark the eighteenth anniversary tomorrow of the now $8.4 billion revenue company's founding.