Salesforce Cuts 4,000 Jobs, CEO Says ‘Fewer Heads’ Needed

Salesforce, the company behind Slack, has laid off about 4,000 employees from its customer support team, reducing its workforce from 9,000 to 5,000. The decision, announced on September 1, is part of a shift toward using AI tools to boost efficiency. CEO Marc Benioff said the move allows the company to focus human talent on more valuable tasks.

CEO Marc Benioff said that the layoffs happened because AI is now handling basic support tasks. He explained that the team size was reduced because fewer people are needed to do routine work.

Benioff explained that Salesforce‘s AI now manages approximately half of all customer interactions, enhancing efficiency without compromising service quality. Additionally, the new system oversees both AI and human agents, escalating more complex issues to human staff when necessary.

Benioff mentioned that AI assisted in eliminating a backlog of over 100 million sales leads accumulated over 26 years due to staff shortages.

Benioff said the new agentic sales system is reaching out to people who have tried to contact them over the past 26 years. It uses AI and a smart system to handle conversations and improve how it connects with customers.

Benioff’s recent comments indicate a shift from his July 2025 statement, where he believed AI would assist workers rather than replace them, emphasizing that humans will remain important because AI isn’t always reliable.

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Benioff stated that humans are still necessary to verify facts, but since AI now manages half of customer service tasks, the layoffs were unavoidable.