Salesforce planning more job cuts amid AI hiring push

Salesforce is expected to cut around 1,000 roles while simultaneously hiring sales staff as part of its AI push, according to reports from Bloomberg this week.

Details on which business units are set for cuts are yet to be confirmed. However, a source familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that affected employees will be able to apply for alternative internal positions.

If confirmed, the layoffs mark the third round of cuts at the CRM giant in the space of two years. The company laid off 10% of its global workforce in early 2023 as part of a restructuring program aimed at reducing costs.

These significant cuts were followed by another round of layoffs in January 2024, which saw around 700 staff let go.

The cuts would also make Salesforce the latest in a long line of companies to cut jobs to make space for expansion into AI — including Workday this week cutting 10% of its staff in order to further invest in the technology.

In a statement confirming the move, Workday CEO Carl Eschenbach said AI was changing how work gets done and opening up potential areas of growth for the company.

"This creates a massive opportunity for us, but we need to make some changes to better align our resources with our customers' evolving needs," he said in an announcement.

In 2023, Dropbox cut 16% of roles in order to beef up AI hiring. Last year, SAP announced a restructuring plan that would impact 8,000 jobs as it shifted to AI, while Intuit announced plans to lose 1,800 roles but replace them in critical areas including AI.

Of course, other companies aren't saying the AI part out loud, with plenty of tech companies announcing layoffs in order to boost efficiency or focus on "high-growth areas", notably AI.

Both Cisco and Dell announced job cuts last year aimed at focusing on "high growth" business segments, though plenty of layoffs happened across the industry, with Layoffs.fyi tracking more than 152,000 job losses over nearly 550 companies — though that's a decline from the massive cuts seen in 2023.

ITPro has contacted Salesforce for confirmation of the job cuts, but is yet to receive a response.

Salesforce is bullish on AI

Salesforce has been ramping up its AI ambitions over the past two years, with the company unveiling the launch of its agentic AI service, Agentforce, in September 2024.

AI agents now form a key part of the company’s strategy, and Marc Benioff has been highly vocal about the potential of the technology, along with the prospect of agents taking over from human workers in certain business areas.

Last month, Benioff said the company could consider a freeze on software engineering hires in 2025 due to the productivity boosts delivered by AI.

"In engineering this year at Salesforce, we're seriously debating — maybe we aren't going to hire anybody this year," Benioff said on a podcast. "We have seen such incredible productivity gains because of the agents that work side by side with our engineers."

That prediction echoed a similar statement by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who told a different podcast that he believed AI could begin to do the work of "mid level engineers" this year.

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