Salesforce CEO Says 30% of Internal Work Is Being Handled by AI (yahoo.com)
- Reference: 0178193116
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/25/06/26/1316242/salesforce-ceo-says-30-of-internal-work-is-being-handled-by-ai
- Source link: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/salesforce-ceo-says-30-internal-121536694.html
> "AI is doing 30% to 50% of the work at Salesforce now," Benioff said in an interview, pointing at job functions including software engineering and customer service.
>
> [...] Salesforce has said that use of AI internally has allowed it to hire fewer people. The San Francisco-based software company is focused on selling an AI product that promises to handle tasks such as customer service without human supervision. Benioff said that tool has reached about 93% accuracy, including for large customers such as Walt Disney.
[1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/salesforce-ceo-says-30-internal-121536694.html
No drawbacks (Score:4, Funny)
Salesforce is already shit, so if the AI output is shit, nothing will get worse.
Re: (Score:2)
This is just the thing. When quality does not matter, AI can do it. But you could also just not have done it and that would have been even cheaper.
It could have been... (Score:1)
I mean, it's Salesforce.
AI is really for summarizing meetings, which could have been emails, which really could have been a side message on slack, which could be better served by a ticket addressed sometime in the next month when someone actually had time for it.
Oh look.. (Score:2)
Another company whose business strategy requires customers believe they have a handle on this 'AI thing' claim they have a handle on this 'AI thing'.
Maybe they do, maybe they don't, but it's hardly a trustworthy source of truth rather than just doing their marketing work for them by relaying their marketing effort as 'news'.
"AI is doing 30% to 50% of the work at Salesforce" (Score:5, Insightful)
That right there should tell you how much added value this company provides.
Re: (Score:2)
Some of their products look like and act like AI. If they can successfully use their own products to deliver, I think that's a good measure of the value.
Even if you cut down the wrong tree, if you do so efficiently, you prove the process works. Right thing, wrong way, well, the next tree cutting project will go better. Your saw is not the problem.
Translation: We're downsizing due to economy (Score:2)
Translation: We're not failing...we're becoming more agile! We either have too many people or are expecting reduced revenue, so we need to do some layoffs and cut hiring...but instead of this being bad news which could affect our stock price, let's instead say we're DOGE-ing the shit out of this company and becoming super high tech and automated. We're not correcting for macro-economic forces, the majority of which are far beyond our control...nope...no mistakes on our part...we're riding the AI wave to
if your stats are 30-50%, then you don't actually (Score:2)
if your stats are 30-50%, then you don't actually know how much. It's meaningless to say 30-50%... you either know or you don't... this is an estimate.. coming from a CEO... not at all biased to pad those numbers...
it doesn't show-
-the true value, does this make the company more productive? or improve output?
-does the internal work now need to be reviewed to ensure the mistakes are taken care of and modeling improved, or are they just accepting errors and good to proceed with them?
- they fired staff, and r
Quality matters (Score:2)
The MBA assholes are not capable to understand that though. They think "work handled" is the same as "work handled" regardless of who or what does it. That is very much not the case.
Re: (Score:2)
More likely, the MBA *&($#)es look at the outcomes, ROI, and impacts, and if the AI bots serve the customer sufficiently, that is how they will proceed. Not many of these MBA whatever's survive if they think their idea results in less success. Are they sometimes wrong? Well, so are you. And me. Mistakes by some of us mean no new cell phone this year. For others, their mistakes mean a great deal more. Still mistakes. I await your infallible process.
What happens when Marc is replaced by AI? (Score:1)
Are we sure that Marc is not already an AI? Don't AIs like to talk themselves up a bit. The water-cooler talk will get to be quite dull; imagine the humor. AI-1: Have you heard about the computer meeting the mouse? AI-2: Yes, I have! I know all the same jokes as you. AI-1: Oh, right...
It's all bloat (Score:2)
These companies are all the same, they hired a ridiculous amount of people that they didn't need and now they're using AI to do the busywork invented to keep these people busy, are reducing the workforce and clapping themselves on the back for how awesome they are. Huzzah!
I'm convinced that most big companies are huge for no good reason, especially in tech. Do you need to have thousands of devs "working" on your products? Did Twitter need 10000 employees to function? Definitely not (firing 90% within a cou
What work? (Score:2)
Why are they never telling us what type of work work these AI are doing?
It's no wonder. (Score:2)
No wonder why it's so slow and shitty.
Profits up 30%? Revenue? (Score:3)
If not, it's likely baloney.
Re: (Score:2)
Don't forget the other end of the equation: has the time it takes for a customer to get their support issue effectively resolved decreased?
Re: (Score:2)
> Don't forget the other end of the equation: has the time it takes for a customer to get their support issue effectively resolved decreased?
In a word? ... 'No'.
Re: (Score:2)
No the other end of the equation is a fork. More time to resolution, or less time to resolution.
Neither is necessary, the first step is migration to new technology. Now Salesforce can focus on improving performance, or possibly reducing costs further. If you're optimizing a programmable, non human process, you're relieved of the costs of employment. Now you manage the costs of processing bits, managing the whole of it, and adapting to changing circumstances. Not necessarily cheaper than having people doing
Re: (Score:2)
Assuming he's correct then you won't see that immediately. Most of these companies over work their employees pushing them into 60 to 80 hour work weeks. Americans for example work more hours than the Japanese now because of that.
Initially people will start just working normal work weeks. Then the layoffs will come and their hours will shoot back up.
I mentioned this before but think of AI as you're incompetent coworker. The AI doesn't directly replace everything you do what it does instead is replace
Re: (Score:1)
"you'll just have to work harder" doesn't work. Companies have always been coming up with excuses to demand longer hours from their employees, and those unwilling to work those longer hours quit. Whether the excuse is AI or something else.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, that leads into bankruptcy because while the work might formally get done, errors stack on errors and things go to hell.
Re: (Score:2)
Upfront costs of developing these AI processes will not be reflected in this quarter's earnings. Between that and the time lag of reducing now-superfluous staff, you will have to wait for the increased profits to justify your outrage that this business is now more efficient.
Efficiency often results in profits. Sometimes it results in reduced income due to competition, market retractions, and possibly lost sales from customer dissatisfaction. It's not even that simple in reality.