There’s little debate anymore about the fact that AI will displace human workers.
How many workers? That’s another question.
And here’s an estimate from Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff: He says up to 50% of the work at his enterprise software company is now being done by AI.
That quote comes from a recent interview with Bloomberg’s Emily Chang. And if that sounds like a number that invites some skepticism, you’re not alone.
For starters, Benioff is a sales guy who loves big events, big buildings, and big claims, so you might expect there could be some exaggeration going on here. Maybe he’s trying to win back investors, who have pushed Salesforce stock down more than 18% in 2025.
Or, more practically, you might wonder what’s going to happen to the 76,453 people Salesforce said it was employing as of January 2025 — should we expect to see up to 50% of them get laid off?
(In February, Salesforce said it was letting go of about 1,000 workers, but also hiring people to sell some of its new AI products.)
Zoom out a bit and it’s easy to see another problem for Salesforce — and many many other companies — if Benioff’s claim is even close to true: If Salesforce is automating lots of work done by humans, then certainly its customers are, too — so will those customers have less need for Saleforce’s products?
I’ve asked Salesforce PR to weigh in on this stuff, and will update if I hear back.
Here, for the record, is the exchange between Chang and Benioff, which you can watch for yourself around the 12-minute mark:
Benioff: I just had a meeting, coming from a meeting with my head of engineering, and we’re looking at productivity levels — 30 to 50 percent, this year, in key functions. Like engineering, coding, support, service.
Chang: You’re saying AI is doing 30 to 50% of the work?
Benioff: AI is doing 30 to 50% of the work at Salesforce now. And I think that will, you know, continue. I think all of us have to get our head around this idea that AI can do things that before, we were doing, and we can move on to do higher-level work.
