Salesforce has reportedly laid off more employees in a fresh round of job cuts. The cuts affected employees across several teams. For those unaware, Salesforce eliminated fewer than 1,000 jobs in January this year. According to a Business Insider report, citing people familiar with the matter, the latest round of layoffs impacted staff involved with Agentforce, Salesforce’s AI-powered product, as well as teams working on Mulesoft, the company’s IT integration platform, and Marketing Cloud software.
A regulatory filing in California also sheds some light on the layoffs. The filing, known as WARN notice, listed 86 job cuts which affected roles in sales, general administration and technology and product.
Also read: Anthropic launches Claude Fable 5, a safer Mythos AI model: Features, availability and how to use it
The latest job cuts come at a time when the tech industry is adopting AI aggressively. Many companies are investing heavily in AI tools and software, which are designed to automate tasks. Salesforce has also been facing growing concerns that advanced AI systems and digital agents could reduce the need for some traditional software products, including customer relationship management (CRM) tools, which have long been the company’s core business.
To stay competitive, Salesforce has been developing its own AI offerings. One of its biggest bets is Agentforce. However, earlier reports suggested that customer adoption of Agentforce was slower than expected and that some of its capabilities did not fully match the demos shown by the company. Despite those concerns, Salesforce has recently reported progress for the AI product. Last month, the company reported that Agentforce had crossed $1 billion in annualised revenue.
Also read: Starlink India launch reportedly on hold over security concerns: Here is what happened
Meanwhile, last week, it was reported that Google had laid off employees across its Cloud division as the tech giant continues to invest heavily in AI. One of the impacted teams was Google’s Threat Intelligence Group. For those unfamiliar, Threat Intelligence Group is a leading security division which is known for tracking cyber threats and publishing research on hackers and state-sponsored cyberattacks. Other teams within Google Cloud and Mandiant, the cybersecurity company acquired by Google in 2022, were also affected by the layoff.
Also read: Sam Altman says letting AI automate everything will be dangerous and unfulfilling, here is why