Salesforce Leverages AI to Reduce Hiring, Redeploy Staff, and Boost Sales Team

Salesforce Says AI Has Reduced Hiring of Engineers and Customer Service Workers

Salesforce Inc. said the use of artificial intelligence tools internally has allowed it to hire fewer workers, another example of a company changing its hiring plans due to the emerging technology. "We have reduced some of our hiring needs," Chief Financial and Operations Officer Robin Washington said Wednesday on a call with analysts, citing the implementation of AI tools. For example, she said that 500 customer service workers would be redeployed to different roles within the company this year, saving $50 million.

Salesforce Has Used AI to Reduce Personnel Costs By $50 Million This Year. Here's Which Roles Are Affected.

At the same time, the company is accelerating hiring for salespeople to sell its products. Salesforce has recently leveraged AI tools internally to hire fewer workers in certain divisions and more in others. "We have reduced some of our hiring needs," Salesforce's chief financial and operations officer Robin Washington said on Wednesday on a call with analysts, per Bloomberg. She credited the implementation of AI tools for the slowed hiring. According to Washington, AI has enabled Salesforce to reassign 500 customer service workers to other roles at the company this year, resulting in a cost savings of $50 million. The company is also hiring fewer software engineers as its current staff use AI to become more productive. Related: 'Amazing Momentum': Here's Why Salesforce Is Hiring 1,000 New Employees At the same time, Salesforce is ramping up its efforts to hire more salespeople to sell its AI products and other offerings. Chief revenue officer Miguel Milano said on the analyst call that the company now has around 13,000 salespeople and wants to expand the number by 22% this year. Salesforce currently has 76,453 total employees globally. Other tech companies are using AI to help with tasks ranging from engineering to reporting earnings. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella stated last month that engineers at the company are using AI to write about 30% of new code. Google CEO Sundar Pichai said in the same month that the company was using AI to write more than 30% of new code, up from 25% in October. Meanwhile, Klarna, a company that has said its AI chatbot does the work of 700 customer service agents, reported earnings last week using an AI avatar of its CEO. Goldman Sachs predicts that 300 million jobs across the globe could be lost or downgraded due to AI by 2030. Salesforce isn't the only company to ramp up hiring in some areas and cut back in others, thanks to AI. IBM CEO Arvind Krishna told The Wall Street Journal earlier this month that IBM had used AI to replace several hundred human resource employees. IBM's workforce ended up growing instead of shrinking, Krishna disclosed, because the company used the cost savings from the layoffs to hire more software engineers, marketers and salespeople. Related: IBM Replaced Hundreds of HR Workers With AI, According to Its CEO Salesforce's own technology could help other companies reduce their headcount. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said in September that the company's AI agents would allow its clients to forgo hiring new employees or gig workers in busier periods of time. Earlier this week, Salesforce announced that it was acquiring cloud data management company Informatica for $8 billion to help advance its AI capabilities. The deal is one of Salesforce's largest since it bought Slack in 2021 for $27.7 billion and data firm Tableau in 2019 for $15.7 billion. Salesforce reported first-quarter earnings on Wednesday that beat estimates, with revenue up 8% to $9.83 billion. The company stated that its AI subscriptions more than doubled in its first quarter and expects sales in the second quarter to be $10.11 billion to $10.16 billion, more than the $10.02 billion analysts anticipated. "Sometimes you have a quarter when everything is going right for you," Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said in an earnings call, per The Wall Street Journal.

Salesforce's AI push slows hiring; piles pressure on engineers, customer service roles

Salesforce chief financial and operations officer Robin Washington said that, alongside reduced hiring, AI implementation will see 500 customer service staff reassigned to other roles -- an adjustment expected to save $50 million. The company is also hiring fewer engineers due to AI-driven productivity gains, while expanding its sales team to support AI product growth.Salesforce has acknowledged that its adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) tools has enabled the company to scale back on recruitment, according to a report by Bloomberg. During an analyst call, chief financial and operations officer Robin Washington said the company is reducing hiring, with 500 customer service staff to be moved into other roles -- an adjustment expected to save $50 million. She attributed this to the implementation of AI. Meanwhile, in an interview, Washington also said that the company is recruiting fewer engineers thanks to AI-driven productivity boosts. "We view these as assistants, but they are going to allow us to have to hire less and hopefully make our existing folks more productive." As of January 31, Salesforce had a workforce of around 76,500. Despite the reduced hiring in technical roles, the company is ramping up its sales team. Chief revenue officer Miguel Milano stated that the salesforce now numbers 13,000 and is expected to grow by 22% over the coming year. In February, Salesforce announced plans to cut over 1,000 jobs, while simultaneously hiring staff to support the sale of its new AI products. Other major tech companies are also using AI to cut costs associated with staffing. Earlier this month, Microsoft laid off approximately 6,000 employees, with software engineers bearing the brunt of the cuts.