(Bloomberg) — Salesforce Inc. plans to hire more than 1,000 employees to sell its new generative AI agent product.
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The headcount increase is aimed at taking advantage of the “amazing momentum” for the new artificial intelligence product, CEO Marc Benioff said in a note. “Agentforce has only been available for two weeks and we are already hearing incredible feedback from our customers.”
Salesforce, the best-seller in customer relationship management software, pivoted its AI strategy this year to focus on agents: tools that can perform tasks like customer support or sales development without human supervision. It launched the product last month, called Agentforce, with an initial price of about $2 per agent call.
Over the past two years, the San Francisco-based company has worked to control sales costs by cutting jobs and persuading some customers to use more self-service or third-party purchasing options. Salesforce had 72,682 employees at the end of January, according to a filing.
For more information: AI agents have entered the workplace, flaws and all
Other software makers such as ServiceNow Inc. and Microsoft Corp. are also developing autonomous agents. Benioff has repeatedly criticized Microsoft’s AI efforts. “When you look at how Copilot has been delivered to customers, it’s disappointing,” Benioff wrote on X last month, citing Microsoft’s branding for its AI assistants.
Shares, which were up about 1.5%, rose another 2.5% to a record high of $322.81 in New York on Friday. The stock was up 18% this year through Thursday’s close.
(Updates with stock price in sixth paragraph.)
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