Salesforce chief executive Marc Benioff said the company reduced its support workforce by 4,000 roles as artificial intelligence “agents” automated tasks and lowered case volumes, a shift he discussed while promoting the firm’s agent platform on a startup-focused podcast.
Benioff cites agent-driven efficiency and redeployments
According to the Los Angeles Times, Benioff said Salesforce shrank support roles from 9,000 to 5,000 because its AI agents helped automate work. Appearing on “The Logan Bartlett Show,” he described how the company’s platform enables businesses to deploy agents for customer service, employee support, and productivity improvements.
Salesforce said support case volumes declined and it no longer needed to backfill support engineer roles due to efficiency gains from its AI agent platform. “We’ve successfully redeployed hundreds of employees into other areas like professional services, sales, and customer success,” the company said in a statement.
Benioff said AI is doing 30% to 50% of the company’s work as businesses look to lower costs by using automation. He emphasized that people still play a central role: “Humans are not going away. We are working in partnership with these agents, and that’s how I look at it.”
What Salesforce’s agents do
Salesforce’s AI agents can proactively perform tasks without constant human input. The company’s website says they can answer customer pricing questions, generate marketing materials, and manage websites.
Broader context and open questions
The remarks come as technology firms pare headcount while increasing AI investments. The Los Angeles Times noted that Amazon CEO Andy Jassy expects the company’s workforce to shrink as employees gain efficiency from using AI extensively.
Generative AI that produces text, images, code, and other content is reshaping work across industries and in San Francisco, where AI companies are competing for talent and taking over vacant office space. Some executives say AI will replace certain roles, including entry-level positions, while also creating other types of work.
Questions remain about bottom-line impact. Research from McKinsey & Co. found that nearly eight in 10 companies have deployed generative AI, but a similar share reported “no material impact on earnings,” in part because chatbot use is spread thinly and deployments in sales, support, and other functions are limited or narrowly restricted.
Benioff said Salesforce is seeing benefits: over 26 years, the company had more than 100 million leads it couldn’t respond to due to staffing limits, but salespeople can now reach more prospects with AI’s help. He also said Salesforce has a supervisor to help AI agents and humans work together. Salesforce employs more than 76,000 people worldwide.
