Salesforce, the San Francisco-based software giant, has announced that it will not be hiring any more engineers this year, citing substantial productivity improvements from artificial intelligence.
During the 20VC with Harry Stebbings podcast, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff emphasised that Agentforce, their primary AI offering, has become the company’s central focus whilst planning for the following year.
In his discussion with the venture capitalist, Benioff explained the rationale behind the recruitment freeze. He projected a likely expansion of the company’s workforce in five years, whilst noting, “We’re not adding any more software engineers next year because we have increased the productivity this year with Agentforce and with other AI technology that we’re using for engineering teams by more than 30% to the point where our engineering velocity is incredible. I can’t believe what we’re achieving in engineering.”
He further elaborated that support engineer numbers would decrease due to an agentic layer, whilst the sales team would expand by approximately 1,000 to 2,000 people to effectively communicate AI-driven value propositions.
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Speaking to ET last month, Arundhati Bhattacharya, Chairperson and CEO of Salesforce India, discussed AI’s role in expanding workforce capabilities.
She stated, “If you look at people, consumers, all our demands are not met. You go into a state hospital, the doctors are overworked. Workforce is limited by the number of hours that they have at their disposal. What AI actually can do is to unlimit this limitation. Your employment opportunities will go up, maybe the roles will be different. Transition would be a little painful, but it will happen.” Bhattacharya confirmed to ET in September that Salesforce had doubled its Indian workforce in recent years.
