Salesforce CEO says 30% of internal work is being handled by AI

[NEW YORK] Salesforce chief executive officer Marc Benioff said his company has automated a significant chunk of work with AI, another example of a firm touting labor-replacing potential of the emerging technology.

“AI is doing 30 to 50 per cent of the work at Salesforce now,” Benioff said in an interview on The Circuit with Emily Chang, pointing at job functions including software engineering and customer service.

Tech leaders have been increasingly vocal about the potential for AI to replace human workers. Executives at Microsoft and Alphabet have said that AI is producing about 30 per cent of new computer software code on some projects. Salesforce has said that use of AI internally has allowed it to hire fewer people.

The San Francisco-based software company is focused on selling an AI product that promises to handle tasks such as customer service without human supervision. Benioff said that tool has reached about 93 per cent accuracy, including for large customers such as Walt Disney.

“All of us have to get our head around this idea that AI can do things that before we were doing,” Benioff said. “We can move on to do higher-value work.”

In the 2000s, Salesforce revolutionised the way software was sold by offering its customer-management tool over the Internet. Now, as the industry pivots to AI, Benioff is fighting to keep Salesforce’s spot as a leading platform by weaving the new technology through it. BLOOMBERG