Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff on 4,000 layoffs: “AI agents are replacing..."

Salesforce

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has confirmed that artificial intelligence is reshaping the company’s workforce. Speaking on “The Logan Bartlett Show,” Benioff said AI agents have enabled Salesforce to cut nearly half of its customer support staff, amounting to 4,000 roles.

Layoffs and AI integration

Benioff explained that AI agents are now taking on customer support responsibilities once handled by humans. “I was able to rebalance my head count on my support,” he said. “I’ve reduced it from 9,000 heads to about 5,000 because I need less heads.” Salesforce reported 76,453 employees across divisions as of January.

The CEO said AI agents break down tasks into smaller steps and have improved productivity. He pointed to one of Salesforce’s challenges over the years: unaddressed customer leads. “There were more than 100 million leads that we have not called back at Salesforce in the last 26 years because we have not had enough people,” Benioff said. “But we now have an agentic sales that is calling back every person that contacts us.”

Human-AI collaboration

Despite the job reductions, Benioff emphasized that AI is working alongside employees. According to him, about half of Salesforce’s conversations are now managed by AI, with the other half handled by people. He compared this hybrid model to autonomous driving. “It’s not any different than you’re in your Tesla and all of a sudden it’s self-driving and goes, ‘Oh, I don’t actually know what’s happening, you take over,’” Benioff said.

An “omnichannel supervisor” is in place to coordinate interactions between AI and human staff, ensuring that complex cases are transferred appropriately.

Industry context

Agentic AI has become a growing focus in the technology sector. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has said AI agents will drive growth rather than cut jobs, while Microsoft’s Asha Sharma recently suggested that AI could reduce management layers and change organizational structures.

Benioff, who cofounded Salesforce in 1999, said the past eight months have been among the most transformative in his career, underscoring how AI adoption is redefining both operations and workforce planning at one of the world’s largest cloud software companies.