Salesforce Reduces Staff from 9,000 to 5,000 Citing AI-Driven Efficiency

Salesforce has recently cut 4,000 roles from its customer support division, reducing the team from 9,000 to 5,000 employees. CEO Marc Benioff cited the rapid deployment of AI agents as the primary reason for this large-scale restructuring. The company’s new AI-driven platform, Agentforce, now completes around half of all customer service interactions, a dramatic change from the previous year.

These AI systems automate routine customer queries and escalate more complex issues to human agents, allowing Salesforce to streamline its operations and reduce costs. Benioff described the move as a rebalancing of the support workforce to align with new efficiency standards brought by intelligent automation. Many staff affected by the layoffs have been redeployed to other critical functions within the company, such as sales and customer success.

This announcement marks a significant shift from Benioff’s earlier public statements, in which he minimized the risk of job loss due to AI and emphasized technology’s role in augmenting human workers. Now, Salesforce finds itself part of a larger industry wave: in 2025, over 64,000 tech jobs will have been cut as major companies like Microsoft, Meta, and Google make similar moves to harness cost savings and productivity improvements from AI integration.

The company also noted that its AI systems have enabled it to reconnect with more than 100 million previously uncontacted sales leads accumulated over its 26-year history. As automation spreads beyond customer service into broader business functions, Salesforce’s approach signals both new opportunities and growing uncertainty for workers across the tech landscape.