(Bloomberg) — Salesforce Inc. plans to hire more than 1,000 workers to sell its new generative AI agent product.
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This hiring wave aims to capitalize on the “incredible momentum” of the new artificial intelligence product, Chief Executive Officer Marc Benioff said in a message. “Agentforce only became available two weeks ago and we are already receiving incredible feedback from our customers. »
The best-seller in customer relationship management software, Salesforce this year pivoted its AI strategy to focus on agents, tools capable of performing tasks such as customer support or sales development without supervision human. The company launched the product, called Agentforce, last month, with an initial price of about $2 per conversation with an agent.
Over the past two years, the San Francisco-based company has worked to control its sales spending by cutting jobs and persuading some customers to use more self-service or shopping options. third party. At the end of January, Salesforce had 72,682 employees, according to a filing.
Read more: AI agents have entered the workplace, flaws and all
Other software companies such as ServiceNow Inc. and Microsoft Corp. also develop 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 posted last month on X, citing Microsoft’s brand name for its AI assistants.
Shares, which were up about 1.5%, jumped another 2.5% on Friday’s news to a record high of $322.81 in New York. The stock had gained 18% this year through Thursday’s close.
(Updates with stock price in sixth paragraph.)
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