Salesforce layoffs: A US-based cloud software company, Salesforce’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Marc Benioff, in a recent interview on the YouTube channel ‘The Logan Bartlett Show’, said that the company has cut jobs of nearly 4,000 customer support staff as artificial intelligence (AI) tools takes a larger share in the customer service, reported multiple news portals. 

Benioff confirmed that the California-based tech major has cut its customer support workforce to 5,000 employees, compared to its earlier 9,000 levels, marking a 4,000-employee job cut.

“I was able to rebalance my headcount on my support. From 9,000 heads to about 5,000 because I need less heads,” said Marc Benioff in his interaction at The Logan Bartlett Show, reported the news portal Business Insider on 1 September 2025.

The executive also said that in Salesforce, nearly 50% of all the customer service conversations are now dealt with the use of AI and the rest are fulfilled with the help of human workforce. 

Why the sudden layoffs?

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff explained his move and said that the company was not able to get back to potential clients if they called earlier due to not having enough people on the team. Now, with the help of the AI agent in customer service, the company is equipped to answer ‘every person that contacts’ the firm.

“There were more than 100 million leads that we have not called back at Salesforce in the last 26 years because we have not had enough people. But we now have an agentic sales that is calling back every person that contacts us,” he said, according to the news portal’s report.

Benioff was also one of the co-founders who founded the tech giant. He highlighted that the “omnichannel supervisor” or the artificial intelligence technology reportedly helps both human and AI agents collaborate with customers. 

The Tesla reference

Giving the example of Elon Musk’s Tesla, he said that it is not different than that electric vehicle which can suddenly switch to the self driving mode and also lets the human take over when they want.

“It’s not any different than you’re in your Tesla and all of a sudden it’s self-driving and goes, ‘Oh, I don’t actually know what’s happening, you take over,’ and that’s kind of the same thing,” said Benioff cited the news portal.

However, with that said, the executive also accepted that some human roles remain necessary for the tasks which artificial intelligence is not equipped to handle yet.

Benioff is very similar to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who also has a history of supporting AI agents and has earlier said that they will boost, not cull, the headcount in the company.

“When companies become more productive using artificial intelligence, it is likely that it manifests itself into either better earnings, or better growth, or both,” said Huang. “When that happens, the next email from the CEO is likely not a layoff announcement,” cited the news portal.