Salesforce Quietly Lays Off Around 1,000 Employees as it Ramps Up AI Strategy

In the midst of a major leadership change and an increased emphasis on artificial intelligence, cloud software giant Salesforce has slashed 1,000 jobs across various teams in yet another wave of layoffs. Staff members in marketing, product management, data analytics, and positions associated with Salesforce's main artificial intelligence product, Agentforce, were laid off earlier this month. A minimum of nine workers informed their LinkedIn networks about the layoffs, and two more verified the news to Business Insider.

Salesforce Going Through Major Restructuring

The most recent personnel reduction occurs amid Salesforce's ongoing internal transformation. This includes the announcement of a significant executive change. Salesforce has appointed or promoted six new executives to cover critical positions in security, marketing, architecture, enterprise technology, Slack, and Agentforce since five senior execs left the company in December.

According to media reports, an insider stated that the layoffs affected fewer than 1,000 positions. The company's rapid transition to AI-driven processes is highlighted by the layoffs. Agentforce, Salesforce's autonomous AI agent platform, has been emphasised time and time again by CEO Marc Benioff as pivotal to the future of the company.

Agentforce’s Operations

In an effort to increase efficiency and scale, Agentforce allows businesses to deploy autonomous bots to do jobs that were previously performed by human teams. Using AI agents, Salesforce drastically reduced the size of its customer support workforce, according to Benioff. The team went from around 9,000 to about 5,000. Agentforce has been widely used since its introduction in 2024. The platform had tens of thousands of deployments by 2025, according to Benioff. He went on to say that the clients were prepared to move to the next phase of execution.

The alterations, according to a Salesforce representative, were more indicative of strategic succession planning than of any kind of disruption. An engine for talent has always been Salesforce. To further emphasise that Salesforce's strategy is institutionalised rather than personalised, the spokesperson mentioned the company's strong bench and aggressive succession planning. With these new executives at the helm, the firm is optimistic about the future of FY27.

Employees Sentiments Affected Drastically

There appears to be increasing discontent among Salesforce employees regarding morale, career advancement opportunities, and job security. After the organisational structure was flattened, several workers complained about low morale and few chances for promotion. In addition, they brought up the ongoing concern about layoffs, which they said occur every two years around February and September.

Others have pointed out that, although pay and perks (such as flexible scheduling and extensive parental leave) are still competitive, the level of expectation and competition within the company has increased.