Artificial Intelligence strikes again! Yep you heard that right AI has now led to layoffs in yet another company. Tech Industry is reeling from mass layoffs after layoffs as AI is increasingly being used by companies to automate jobs. Salesforce has laid off 4,000 customer support employees as artificial intelligence takes on a growing share of its service operations. Chief executive Marc Benioff confirmed the cuts during an appearance on the Logan Bartlett podcast released on Friday, saying the company had reduced its support workforce from 9,000 to 5,000.
What did Benioff say on layoffs?
“I was able to rebalance my head count on my support,” Benioff said. He reduced it from 9,000 heads to about 5,000 because he needed less heads. The downsizing amounts to nearly a 45% cut in the support division of the cloud software giant.
Benioff’s Contradictory Statements and Decisions
The workforce reduction marks a complete contrast to Benioff’s July 2025 statements, when he argued that AI wouldn’t lead to mass unemployment. In a Fortune interview, he emphasized that AI would augment rather than replace workers, stating “the humans are not going away” and dismissing “scary narratives” about AI layoffs.
Moreover, two months earlier, Benioff had positioned himself against AI startup CEOs like Anthropic’s Dario Amodei who predicted massive white-collar displacement. He argued that AI’s current accuracy limitations, around 90% even with company data, meant “you need the human in the loop.” Benioff insisted that while AI enhances productivity, it doesn’t replace workers because “AIs can’t fact check because they don’t have that level of accuracy.”
Which Job roles have been impacted?
The implementation of AI extends beyond customer support into sales operations, where AI agents are addressing a significant backlog. Benioff revealed that Salesforce had accumulated over 100 million uncalled sales leads over 26 years due to insufficient staffing.
“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,” he explained. “But we now have an agentic sales that is calling back every person that contacts us.” The company uses an “omnichannel supervisor” system that coordinates collaboration between human and AI agents, allowing AI to recognise when tasks require human intervention.
What is the Future of hirings?
The Salesforce CEO had even announced in July that the company wouldn’t hire additional software engineers, customer service agents, or lawyers, but was adding sales staff to help customers adopt AI technology. Salesforce employed 76,453 people across all divisions as of January 2025, making the 4,000 support cuts represent roughly 5% of the total workforce.
