Not every company is tapping the brakes on the AI boom — Salesforce certainly isn’t. CEO Marc Benioff says artificial intelligence now handles as much as 50% of the company’s workload. While Benioff was full of praise for the technology, he offered little insight into what that shift means for displaced workers.
In an interview on Bloomberg's The Circuit with Emily Chang, Benioff said, “All of us have to get our head around this idea that AI could do things that, before, we were doing — and we can move on to do higher-value work.” He estimated that between 30% and 50% of Salesforce’s tasks are currently being carried out by AI.
Earlier this year, Salesforce laid off 1,000 employees, a move the company attributed to its growing AI emphasis — a point Benioff has downplayed. Reports suggest the company plans to hire 1,000 new workers to sell its AI product, Agentforce, to other companies — firms that may in turn use it to cut their own headcounts. Benioff claims the AI agents can perform tasks with roughly 93% accuracy.
Benioff isn’t the only tech leader talking numbers when it comes to AI’s role. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently shared that around 30% of the company’s code is now written by AI, while Google CEO Sundar Pichai reported a figure of 25%.
However, some tech executives have begun moderating their tone, often in response to growing public skepticism. Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn once said the company would slowly phase out contractors for roles AI could fill and planned to factor AI skills into performance reviews. But by May, von Ahn had softened his stance, saying he no longer envisioned AI replacing staff.