Salesforce layoff: Around 1,000 employees loses their jobs to AI agents
Follow UsAround 1,000 employees were laid off at Salesforce, with cuts across marketing, product, analytics, and AI-related teams.
CEO Marc Benioff said AI is replacing routine work, allowing the company to operate with fewer people in some roles.
The layoffs come alongside leadership exits and promotions, even as Salesforce raises its revenue forecast on strong AI demand.
Salesforce has quietly reduced its workforce at the start of this month, with around 1,000 employees losing their jobs as the company deepens its use of artificial intelligence. The cuts affect teams across marketing, product management, data analytics, and parts of the Agentforce AI group. Several affected workers shared their departures on LinkedIn, bringing the changes into public view. The layoffs have arrived alongside notable leadership changes, adding to a broader sense of transition inside the company. Salesforce has not issued an official statement on the job losses so far, leaving employees and observers to piece together details from reports and online posts as uncertainty continues to spread across the workforce.
SurveyThe job cuts come as Salesforce places a stronger focus on artificial intelligence across its operations. Chief executive Marc Benioff has said the company needs fewer people in some roles as AI handles more routine tasks. In August last year, Benioff said Salesforce reduced its customer support staff from about 9,000 employees to nearly 5,000 by using AI tools. He framed the move as a shift toward efficiency, with software taking over work that once required large teams.
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Agentforce sits at the centre of this push. Benioff has described it as central to every Salesforce product, saying it allows businesses to use AI agents to complete tasks more efficiently. Since its launch, he has said the tool has seen broad adoption, with thousands of customers putting it to use. The company has promoted Agentforce as a way to reduce manual work while maintaining service quality.
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At the same time, Salesforce is going through leadership changes. Since December, five senior officials have publicly shared plans to leave the company. During the same period, the company also announced that it had promoted six new executives to senior positions. All these announcements are an indicator of the reshaping of leadership that is currently taking place.
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Information about the layoffs became public when the company’s past employees discussed their departure on the social platform LinkedIn. Around nine employees stated they received layoff notices. However, two employees confirmed the information to Business Insider.
Despite the job losses, Salesforce raised its revenue forecast in December, citing strong demand for its AI offerings. The company is expected to release its fourth-quarter earnings later this month, as employees and investors watch for signs of direction in 2024.
