There is no more debate about the fact that AI drives away human workers.
How many workers are there? That's another question.
And here's a quote from Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. He says up to 50% of his enterprise software company jobs are currently being done by AI.
The quote comes from a recent interview with Bloomberg's Emily Chan. And if it sounds like a skeptical number, then you're not alone.
First of all, Benioff is a sales rep who loves big events, big buildings and big claims, so you might expect an exaggeration to occur here. Perhaps he is trying to get back investors who pushed Salesforce stock down more than 18% in 2025.
Or, more actually, you might wonder what will happen to the 76,453 people Salesforce said they were hiring as of January 2025.
(In February, Salesforce said it would not only let go of around 1,000 workers, but would also hire people to sell some of its new AI products.)
Zooming out a bit, you can easily see another issue with Salesforce and another issue with many other companies, if Benioff's claim is closer to the truth. If Salesforce automates a lot of the work done by humans, then certainly so does customers.
I ask Salesforce PR to consider something like this and will update if there is a reply.
Here, for the record, there is an exchange between Chan and Benioff.
Benioff: I just held a meeting that came from a meeting with my engineering director and we are considering productivity levels – with important features this year. Like engineering, coding, support, services.
Chan: Are you saying that AI does 30-50% of your job?
Benioff: AI currently does 30-50% of its work at Salesforce. And I think I'll do that, you know, I'll continue. I think we all have to grab our heads around this idea that AI can do what we were doing before and do a higher level of work.
