Artificial Intelligence Agents Set to Initiate Significant Labor Transformation in a Quarter Century
Picture a future where the lines between human workers and digital agents get blurry as hell. AI agents take over 70% of customer service inquiries, draft business plans like a boss, and even collaborate with leaders on strategic decisions. And guess what? Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, isn't just dreaming about this future. It's already happening, right here, right now, buddy.
In a recent sit-down with me, Benioff dropped some mind-blowing insights on how businesses are about to experience an unprecedented transformation, turning the way they operate on its head. "We're in a freakin' new moment," Benioff said. "I think we can all see it, but I think we all know we're going into another unbelievable place, it's kind of a transitionary period."
Digital Labor Rising
What makes Benioff's vision so enticing is that Salesforce has been witnessing this transformation across its customer base and within its own ranks. According to the man himself, while Salesforce has grown into the second-largest enterprise software company on the planet with projected annual revenue of $40.9 billion and around 75,000 employees, it's now venturing into a whole new ballgame—one that could be worth up to $12 trillion. That's some major league growth, man.
Take 1-800-ACCOUNTANT, for instance. They've just wrapped up tax season with a whopping 70% of customer service inquiries being handled like it's no big deal by digital agents. In fact, even Salesforce HQ is seeing major changes with their 9,000 support agents dealing with way less work, thanks to helper.salesforce.com—an AI agent that resolves issues without human intervention.
The New Business Stack
So, what's the tech powering this revolution? Benioff calls it the Salesforce platform—a multi-layered system consisting of applications (sales, service, marketing, commerce, Tableau, Slack), a data cloud, and the agentic layer.
This agentic layer is where the real magic happens. Deploy these agents either in the office with employees or directly to customers, and they can build and execute business strategies on the platform like a boss.
But there's one crucial ingredient that often gets overlooked: data. Benioff stressed that high-quality, structured data is the foundation for effective AI agents. "Investing in data is key, my friend," Benioff said. "You've gotta get your data together. That's why the data cloud is so important. We've accumulated about 50 trillion records through our data cloud for our customers."
Leading with AI
Now, here's something that really caught my attention—how Benioff uses AI in his own leadership practices. Every January, Benioff drafts something called a V2MOM, which is a document outlining his vision, values, methods, obstacles, and metrics. Traditionally, this document is a collaborative effort between Benioff and another executive, but now, he has added a third collaborator—an AI agent.
"So, I'll tell the AI: Hey, my plan, compare it to what my competitors are doing. Give me a grade. Offer recommendations on what I should be doing differently", Benioff explained. "What am I weak at? What am I strong at? Help me amp up this plan."
This three-way collaboration—executive, colleague, and AI—represents the augmentation approach Benioff is advocating across Salesforce. "That's what I encourage all my employees to do, use AI to boost their productivity and do more," said Benioff.
The Physical Dimension: More Than Just Software
While much of the AI conversation focuses on software, Benioff sees a future where digital agents take on a physical form through robots. "Robots are a major part of the digital labor revolution," he said, pointing to recent advancements from Stanford University's Aloha model as evidence of this evolution.
Imagine going to a hotel and being greeted by a robot that asks, "Hey, Marc, how are you? Should we leave the room as it is? Do you want any changes to your hotel reservation?"
Salesforce is putting its money where its mouth is by investing in this vision through partnerships and backing model companies providing software for this robotic layer.
The Effect on Jobs and Skills
Of course, all this talk about AI inevitably leads to discussions about jobs and skills. Benioff is refreshingly honest about the changes underway at Salesforce: "We're going to have to rebalance around 50% of our customer support agents. When it comes to engineering, we're not going to hire any new engineers this year because we're already getting 30% more productivity, and we think we're going to get 50% more productivity."
This rise in productivity extends across departments, from legal to healthcare. In radiology, for instance, AI systems are increasingly scoring and grading scans, with humans complementing the work.
In the future, the skills that will matter most are "the ability to work with an AI," Benioff asserted. "You're going to have to know how to interact with the AI, construct the prompts to deliver this kind of interaction."
The Leadership Imperative
For business leaders navigating this transformation, Benioff's advice is simple: "Keep going faster."
The most successful CEOs in the age of AI, according to Benioff, are those "who fully embrace this technology, take risks, deploy fast, fail fast, and are willing to explore new ideas."
Benioff's recent decision to replace his chief information officer with someone who had a proven track record of deploying artificial intelligence speaks volumes about his commitment to AI-driven innovation.
The Road Ahead
Looking exactly 15 years into the future, Benioff paints a picture of companies where employees are "highly augmented" through technologies like brain-computer interfaces, alongside widespread deployment of digital labor. The result? "Businesses' key performance indicators (KPIs) will be vastly improved," Benioff said, "so companies will be a lot more profitable, and we'll enter an era of abundance when it comes to business success."
Though transparency and trust may still be works in progress ("there's no finish line when it comes to trust"), Benioff remains positive about the potential of agentic AI, calling it the next great frontier in business transformation.
What struck me most throughout our conversation wasn't just the scale of change Benioff foresaw, but how much of it is already happening. While many CEOs still view AI as just a narrow tool for specific tasks, Salesforce is experiencing a fundamental shift in how work gets done, with the promise of even greater transformations ahead.
The bottom line? As I often tell my clients, it's time to think bigger. Way bigger. Because if Benioff is correct, we're not just upgrading our existing business models—we're ushering in an entirely new era of human-machine collaboration that will redefine what's possible.
- Ai agents are not just dealing with customer service inquiries at Salesforce but also collaborating with leaders on strategic decisions, a testament to Marc Benioff's vision of an unprecedented transformation in business driven by technology.
- Marc Benioff believes that high-quality, structured data is crucial for effective ai agents, emphasizing the importance of the Salesforce data cloud in powering this digital revolution.
- In the future, according to Benioff, businesses will be highly augmented, with digital labor incorporated into various departments, and the skills that will matter most will be the ability to work with ai, requiring employees to interact effectively with these agents.
