Salesforce: Actually We’re Going to Hire 2,000 Sales Execs Now To … Sell AI

So it was just the other day Salesforce somewhat stunned the tech world by announcing it would hire 1,000 folks in sales and marketing to sell AgentForce and its AI products — while keeping other hiring, including engineering, flat.

Per The Information, Benioff has also instructed his sales team to go all-in and put AI and Agentforce into every deal possible.  More here.

It’s a bit counterintuitive at first — isn’t AI replacing people?  But we all know enterprise software.  It doesn’t sell itself.  Not really.

Salesforce and Benioff are all in on agents and AI for its platforms.  They know they can sell it, and they need to sell it now.  They need 2,000 new sales execs for that.  And while Salesforce’s growth has slowed dramatically the past 2 years, it did bounce back a bit last quarter, and its stock is up 33% this year.

And personally, while I’m still in learning mode for AI, I’m not betting on any net reduction in sales headcount from AI.  I haven’t seen it yet, and don’t expect to see it.  I do expect agents to make routine sales interactions better though.  We’re already seeing this with AI done right in support and the contact center.  When support uses AI right, it can resolved 20% or more of tickets and often with top 10% CSAT.  A sales AI agent should be able to do that sooner rather than later.

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