Salesforce

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Recent Articles about Salesforce
Dell Founder, Chairman and CEO Michael Dell. Photo via Getty Images
Applied AI

What We Learned From Salesforce’s Dreamforce; Using OpenAI and Anthropic For Different Tasks

By Kevin McLaughlin and Jing Yang · Oct 16, 2025 11:06am PDT
Welcome back!Salesforce is shifting its artificial intelligence strategy to boost flagging growth as even CEO Marc Benioff this week acknowledged a gap between the technology’s capabilities and corporate customers’ willingness to buy it, Erin and I reported Wednesday. At its annual Dreamforce event for customers in San Francisco, we were... Welcome back!Salesforce is shifting its artificial intelligence strategy to boost flagging growth...
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff at Dreamforce on Tuesday. Image via Getty

Salesforce CEO Shifts AI Strategy as OpenAI Threat Looms

By Kevin McLaughlin and Erin Woo · Oct 15, 2025 2:22pm PDT · 5 comments
At Salesforce’s annual Dreamforce event for customers last year, CEO Marc Benioff told roughly 45,000 attendees that using artificial intelligence to automate everything from customer service to sales functions was an easy and quick process. At this year’s event, now underway in San Francisco, Benioff toned down the rhetoric. He said Tuesday at... At Salesforce’s annual Dreamforce event for customers last year, CEO Marc Benioff told roughly...
Art by Mike Sullivan

AI Ad Tech ‘Land Grab’ Pits Salesforce Against Google, Microsoft and Amazon

By Catherine Perloff · Oct 13, 2025 6:00am PDT
The murky, highly complex business of helping advertisers buy space on digital media is currently dominated by Google, Amazon and a handful of much smaller ad tech firms. But an array of other companies, including Salesforce, Microsoft and a new initiative led by AppNexus founder Brian O’Kelley, hopes to use new artificial intelligence tools to... The murky, highly complex business of helping advertisers buy space on digital media is currently...
Marc Benioff, left, and Satya Nadella. Photos via Getty
Salesforce, Microsoft Find Selling AI to Enterprises Is Easier Said Than Done
By Aaron Holmes and Kevin McLaughlin · Sep 16, 2025 10:30am PDT · 1 comment
Marc Benioff, left, and Satya Nadella. Photos via Getty
Applied AI

Salesforce, Microsoft Find Selling AI to Enterprises Is Easier Said Than Done

By Aaron Holmes and Kevin McLaughlin · Sep 16, 2025 10:30am PDT · 1 comment
As new artificial intelligence flooded the software market over the past few years, CEOs of incumbents such as Salesforce and Microsoft said they were in pole position to capitalize on the wave.They already have relationships with the largest companies in the world, which rely on their apps as systems of record, meaning they use them to hold... As new artificial intelligence flooded the software market over the past few years, CEOs of...
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff via Getty. Art via Clark Miller
Exclusive

Marc Benioff Said AI Was Easy. A Team at Salesforce Proved Him Wrong

By Kevin McLaughlin · Sep 15, 2025 6:00am PDT · 2 comments
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff was upset. Last fall, one of his technical teams told large Salesforce customers that using Agentforce, the software firm’s new artificial intelligence for automating customer service and other functions, would require extensive planning. The product information the Salesforce team shared with those customers... Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff was upset. Last fall, one of his technical teams told large...
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff
Applied AI

Salesforce CEO Inadvertently Stokes AI ‘Crisis’ Narrative

By Amir Efrati · Sep 4, 2025 10:30am PDT · 4 comments
After listening to Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and his top brass describe their excitement about the company’s artificial intelligence business for an hour and half on Wednesday, one might have thought they were taking a much deserved victory lap.“Every single one of our customers is becoming an agentic enterprise,” Benioff said.In reality, his... After listening to Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and his top brass describe their excitement about...
Art by Clark Miller (photos: Getty Images).
The Big Read

A Marc Benioff Protégé Has Morphed Into Salesforce’s Big Worry

By Jon Victor and Kevin McLaughlin · Jun 13, 2025 9:19am PDT · 2 comments
After an unexpected exit as Salesforce co-CEO in 2022, Bret Taylor sat down with a friend, Benchmark’s Peter Fenton, to brainstorm ideas for what to do next. He knew if he chose to go up against ex-boss Marc Benioff, who had shared the CEO duties with him, Benioff would be a formidable opponent. “He had an immense admiration for Marc,” Fenton... After an unexpected exit as Salesforce co-CEO in 2022, Bret Taylor sat down with a friend,...
Salesforce Challenges the Principle That Customers Control Their Data
Salesforce Challenges the Principle That Customers Control Their Data
By Kevin McLaughlin · Jun 12, 2025 10:40am PDT · 1 comment
Salesforce Challenges the Principle That Customers Control Their Data
Applied AI

Salesforce Challenges the Principle That Customers Control Their Data

By Kevin McLaughlin · Jun 12, 2025 10:40am PDT · 1 comment
image via Getty
Exclusive

Salesforce Blocks AI Rivals From Using Slack Data

By Kevin McLaughlin and Stephanie Palazzolo · Jun 10, 2025 6:40pm PDT · 16 comments
Slack, an instant-messaging service popular with businesses, recently blocked other software firms from searching or storing Slack messages even if their customers permit them to do so, according to a public disclosure from Slack’s owner, Salesforce. The move, which hasn’t previously been reported, could hamper fast-growing artificial... Slack, an instant-messaging service popular with businesses, recently blocked other software...