Cloud Wars CEO Outlook 2025 with Salesforce's Marc Benioff

Salesforce's Excitement for 2025 and the Role of
Agents (01:04)


Benioff shares his enthusiasm for the current technological
moment. He explains that agents will help businesses operate at
lower costs and improve key performance indicators (KPIs). Agents
are being rapidly adopted, with Salesforce deploying its agent
platform at scale and significantly reducing the workload on
human support agents. "We are in an opportunity, I think, for all
of our customers, to connect with their customers in this
incredible new way that we call agentics or agents . . . we're
witnessing something I think, that we've only seen in the
movies."


Salesforce's Market Position and Digital Labor
(02:35)


Salesforce is the second largest software company in the world,
with a $38 billion market cap and $12.9 billion in cash flow. "I
think we're one of the first enterprise software companies to
deliver an agentic platform at scale with the level of
performance and capability that everybody wants." Its platform,
Customer 360, integrates various products, creating a
comprehensive solution. It's well-positioned to address the issue
of digital labor, which has the potential to transform
businesses. Benioff says there's a multi-trillion-dollar total
addressable market (TAM) for digital labor.


The Importance of Data and AI in Salesforce's
Strategy (10:30)


Benioff outlines three core initiatives at Salesforce over the
past 24 months: integrating acquired apps into the core platform,
developing a high-performing data cloud, and enhancing the
agentic layer. He discusses the importance of a unified data
model and the integration of the data cloud with Salesforce's
apps. AI and machine learning have made many advancements in
recent years and while AI is not yet perfect, it has
significantly improved over the past decade.


Salesforce’s Core Values and Commitment to Partnership (15:29)


Salesforce’s core values — trust, customer success, innovation,
equality, and sustainability — have remained unchanged for 25
years. As Salesforce moves into new technological frontiers,
including AI, Benioff stresses the importance of transparency,
communication, and collaboration. "We are moving into a new world
together, and we're going to be better together." He reaffirms
Salesforce’s dedication to working closely with customers and
welcomes them into the future of innovation and technology.


The Role of Agents in Enhancing Human Potential
(17:11)


Benioff discusses the potential of agents to enhance human
capabilities, citing examples from Disney and Gucci where AI has
improved employee performance and customer satisfaction. "We also
saw that in Gucci, for one of the call centers where we deployed
this technology, revenue [rose] 35% because the agents were just
making those employees just better." He touches upon the need for
rebalancing roles within the company as AI takes over certain
tasks, ensuring that employees are continuously skill-building
and evolving.


The Future of Agents and Applications (20:50)


He addresses the misconception that traditional databases and
applications will be entirely replaced by voice-driven AI
interfaces, like those depicted in the movie Her. He
explains that AI models are not data storage systems but
intelligence engines that augment and extend existing
capabilities. While AI is evolving rapidly, Benioff says that
current enterprise systems still rely on databases, applications,
and workflows. He clarifies that AI will complement these systems
rather than replace them entirely.


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