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.”
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