Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has revealed that Artificial Intelligence (AI) now performs between 30% and 50% of the work at the San Francisco-based software giant.
According to a Bloomberg report, Benioff disclosed this while speaking in an interview, noting that AI is now embedded in various job functions at Salesforce, including software engineering and customer service, and has allowed the company to scale operations with fewer hires.
The disclosure came nearly a year after the company implemented significant workforce reductions.
In July 2023, Salesforce laid off about 300 employees, part of what it called a broader strategy to “optimise its structure and drive growth.”
“All of us have to get our heads around this idea that AI can do things that we were doing before. We can move on to do higher-value work,” Benioff said.
AI and job loss concerns
Benioff’s remarks come amid ongoing concerns about AI replacing human labour.
Executives at other major tech firms, including Microsoft and Alphabet (Google’s parent company), have also stated that AI is now producing up to 30% of new code on certain projects.
- These advancements have contributed to a trend of reduced hiring and smaller corporate teams, particularly in functions that can be automated.
- Salesforce, for its part, has been promoting its internal AI tool that delivers automated customer service, reportedly achieving 93% accuracy, including for large enterprise clients like Walt Disney Co.
- The company, which helped pioneer the shift to cloud-based software in the early 2000s, is now doubling down on AI as the next big frontier.
- Benioff is repositioning the company’s platform to integrate generative and predictive AI tools, as demand grows for intelligent automation across industries.
More jobs for AI, fewer jobs for humans
The Salesforce CEO’s disclosure came barely a week after Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told staff to embrace AI and warned that the technology will lead to a smaller corporate workforce in the next few years.
Jassy said he expected AI to lead to “efficiency gains” that would allow the firm to reduce its corporate workforce.
“We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs,” he wrote in a memo to the company’s staff.
“It’s hard to know exactly where this nets out over time, but in the next few years, we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company,” he added.
What you should know
A recent report by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in collaboration with Poland’s National Research Institute (NASK) revealed that 25% of jobs globally are potentially exposed to generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), with clerical and highly digital roles most affected.
The report, titled “Generative AI and Jobs: A Refined Global Index of Occupational Exposure”, which was released on Tuesday, May 20, 2025, offers what the authors describe as the most detailed global assessment to date of how GenAI may reshape the labour market.
According to the report, while one in four jobs (25%) worldwide is potentially exposed to GenAI, that figure climbs to 34% in high-income countries, reflecting greater digital integration in those economies.
