Marc Benioff isn’t convinced AI will result in mass layoffs despite repeated warnings in recent months – and that's all based on how Salesforce is approaching the technology internally.
Speaking at the 2025 AI for Good Global Summit, the Salesforce chief exec told Nicholas Thompson, CEO at The Atlantic, that fears over AI devastating white collar workers aren’t being reflected in the company’s experiences so far.
“That isn’t how I see AI,” he said. “Maybe they have AI I don’t have. But in the AI I have, it’s not going to be some huge mass layoff of white collar workers.”
Benioff added that AI adoption will result in a “radical augmentation of the workforce” rather than its deterioration.
His comments came just weeks after research showed AI has the potential to severely impact entry-level workers across a range of industries. It’s a talking point that’s been thrust into the media limelight in recent months amid warnings from leading industry figures.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, for example, warned AI may cut half of all entry-level, white-collar jobs within the next five years.
“We, as the producers of this technology, have a duty and an obligation to be honest about what is coming,” he told Axios. “I don’t think this is on people’s radar.”
In contrast, Benioff maintains a more optimistic outlook on the technology, largely based on engagement with Salesforce customers. Simply put, he stated, no one he’s spoken to in recent months has hinted at widespread job cuts as a result of AI.
“When I’m talking to our customers, I’m not hearing them say ‘oh, now I’m laying off these people because this A, B, C technology increase because of AI’,” he said.
“So I think we need to somehow shed the fear of what that all means.”
Salesforce’s hiring pause and big sales push
Salesforce has implemented some hiring restrictions in recent months as a result of AI, which Benioff acknowledged.
The company paused hiring of software engineers due to its success with agentic AI, while hiring for customer service staff has also been paused.
This, Benioff added, is so the company can “let AI productivity really take hold”.
“Because of the incredible productivity opportunity for AI in engineering, this year let’s take some time to actually incorporate that in so we’re not focused on hiring another thousand, two thousand, three thousand engineers,” he said.
Running parallel to hiring pauses in some areas of the business, Benioff told Thompson the company is accelerating hires in sales. This approach was first revealed in February this year when the company announced plans to cut 1,000 roles while hiring for roles in the sales segment.
A key factor here is to meet growing demand for AI solutions, particularly its agentic AI service, Agentforce. Announced in September last year, The success of Agentforce has prompted a sharp pivot at the company, and reports from Fortune show it recently surpassed the one millionth agent-customer interaction.
How Salesforce is approaching AI internally
Benioff’s views on the impact of AI appear to be reflected in how Salesforce is shaking up areas of the business. In a recent op-ed for the Financial Times, he revealed that thousands of employees have been redeployed to other areas and roles.
Indeed, 51% of Salesforce hiring in the first quarter of this year was internal, highlighting the lateral movement of staff throughout the company.
Notably, Benioff wrote that humans “must remain at the center of the story” as the technology continues to take hold across enterprises globally.
“As the CEO of a technology company that helps customers deploy AI, I believe this revolution can usher in an era of unprecedented growth and impact,” he wrote.
“Jobs will change, and as with every major technological shift, some will go away - and new ones will emerge,” Benioff added. “At Salesforce, we’ve experienced this first-hand: Our organization is being radically reshaped.”
Make sure to follow ITPro on Google News to keep tabs on all our latest news, analysis, and reviews.
MORE FROM ITPRO
- Marc Benioff warns Microsoft could repeat 'pretty nasty’ Slack playbook with OpenAI amid frayed relationship
- Marc Benioff thinks today’s CEOs will be the last to have a fully human workforce
- Marc Benioff questions Klarna CEO's move to scrap Workday, Salesforce in SaaS ‘consolidation’ drive
-
Neglecting printer security is leaving you wide open to cyber attacksNews Enterprises are ignoring printer security risks and failing to update, according to HP Wolf Security, leaving them vulnerable to cyber attacks.
-
Cyber espionage group laid low in National Guard network for nearly a yearNews The announcement marks the second major Salt Typhoon incident in the space of two years
-
AI adoption is finally driving ROI for B2B teams in the UK and EUNews Early AI adopters across the UK and EU are transforming their response processes, with many finding first-year ROI success
-
‘The latest example of FOMO investing’: Why the Builder.ai collapse should be a turning point in the age of AI hypeNews Builder.ai was among one of the most promising startups capitalizing on the generative AI boom – until it all came crashing down
-
Is ChatGPT making us dumber? A new MIT study claims using AI tools causes cognitive issues, and it’s not the first – Microsoft has already warned about ‘diminished independent problem-solving’News A recent study from MIT suggests that using AI tools impacts brain activity, with frequent users underperforming compared to their counterparts.
-
‘Agent washing’ is here: Most agentic AI tools are just ‘repackaged’ RPA solutions and chatbots – and Gartner says 40% of projects will be ditched within two years
News Agentic AI might be the latest industry trend, but new research suggests the majority of tools are simply repackaged AI assistants and chatbots.
-
‘Digital first, but not digital only’: Customer service workers were first on the AI chopping block – but half of enterprises are now backtracking amid a torrent of consumer complaints and poor returns on AINews While businesses have been keen on replacing customer service workers with AI, adoption difficulties mean many are now backtracking on plans.
-
‘I don’t think this is on people’s radar’: AI could wipe out half of entry-level jobs in the next five years – and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei thinks we're all burying our heads in the sandNews With AI set to hit entry-level jobs especially, some industry execs say clear warning signs are being ignored
-
‘A complete accuracy collapse’: Apple throws cold water on the potential of AI reasoning – and it's a huge blow for the likes of OpenAI, Google, and AnthropicNews Apple published a research paper on the effectiveness of AI 'reasoning' models - and it seriously rains on the parade of the world’s most prominent developers.
-
Questions raised over AI’s impact as studies tout conflicting adoption outcomesNews Two reports highlight the difficulty of judging the impact of AI on jobs, productivity, and wages
