AI leaders say artificial intelligence could lead to the loss of large numbers of white-collar jobs, and those warnings were reinforced after Block Inc. laid off 40% of its workforce amid a new AI push.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff isn’t so sure.
In an interview with CNBC on Wednesday, he suggested that Mr. Bullock’s move reflects company-specific challenges rather than broader labor market changes.
“Listen, obviously that company has its own problems, and we all know that, so let’s put that aside,” Benioff said. “These declarations about mass white-collar layoffs make no sense to me.”
His comments contrast with increasingly bleak predictions from some AI industry leaders and investors.
In an interview published Wednesday, OpenAI investor Vinod Khosla said he believes 80% of human jobs could be replaced by AI by the 2030s. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said AI could soon eliminate half of entry-level white-collar roles.
But Benioff argued that AI can improve productivity without causing significant layoffs.
Salesforce also had layoffs due to AI
Salesforce also laid off employees. Benioff previously said AI agents are replacing some human roles in customer support. Gary Hershawn/Getty Images
Salesforce itself is reducing its workforce as it rolls out more AI tools.
Benioff announced in September that the company was cutting about 4,000 roles, including those in customer support, citing improved efficiency through AI tools.
“We went from 9,000 to about 5,000 because we needed fewer animals,” Benioff said on an episode of “The Logan Bartlett Show.”
The company implemented another round of layoffs in February, affecting fewer than 1,000 employees, and recently reshuffled its management team.
Still, employees remain confident in Salesforce’s AI approach.
Business Insider previously reported that in a November internal employee survey, about 80% of respondents said Salesforce’s AI tools helped improve productivity.
“Yes, we have cut some areas and moved more capacity to sales,” Benioff said during an appearance on CNBC on Wednesday. “I asked my accountants, Ernst and Young, ‘What am I doing wrong?’ They said, ‘You’re not doing anything wrong.’ In fact, you are ahead of everyone else. ”
Defense against “SaaSpocalypse”
Wall Street is growing wary of software-as-a-service companies in early 2026. This phenomenon is called “SaaSpocalypse”. Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images
Salesforce stock has fallen 20% this year amid concerns that increasingly capable AI agents could disrupt traditional software-as-a-service companies.
Investors are wondering whether advanced AI systems, including tools like Claude Code that can write and debug code, edit files, and build websites, can replace some of the functionality handled by enterprise software products.
These questions are leading investors to sell traditional SaaS companies, a social phenomenon Wall Street calls the “SaaSpocalypse.”
Benioff disagrees.
“We’ve grown 12% in size and have nearly $50 billion in revenue,” he said. “To say there’s some kind of SaaSpocalypse going on, well, we don’t see it in our pipeline, we don’t see it in our numbers.”
Salesforce is rolling out its own AI-enabled products such as Agentforce.
“There are definitely people out there who have stories that come out of a lot of movies,” he said. “But let’s consider what the reality is now. These numbers are real.”
