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Fear That AI Will Swallow Software: Salesforce Fights Back by Making AI Its Customer
🇰🇷 South Korea /Technology

Fear That AI Will Swallow Software: Salesforce Fights Back by Making AI Its Customer

From Dong-A Ilbo · () Korean

Translated from Korean and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

Analysis Named sources Context piece
  • Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff rejected claims that AI agents would bring about the end of software-as-a-service, or SaaS.
  • The company’s shares rose 22% after Salesforce announced a partnership with Anthropic called Claudeforce.
  • Salesforce is shifting from per-user licensing toward usage-based fees as it integrates AI agents with its customer-management software.

Salesforce once built its empire by declaring “The End of Software.” Now, as artificial intelligence threatens to reshape the software industry, the company is partnering with one of the AI firms blamed for accelerating that threat.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said the market’s fears of a “SaaSpocalypse” were misplaced during the company’s earnings call on Aug. 26. Investors appeared to agree. The company’s stock jumped 22% the following day, adding about $37 billion to its market value.

The immediate catalyst came that evening at Salesforce Tower in San Francisco, where Benioff and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei announced Claudeforce. Anthropic had drawn attention in February after unveiling Claude Cowork, an AI work tool capable of handling tasks in areas including law, finance and sales. Its arrival helped fuel concerns that AI agents could replace the software systems businesses use today.

This is not the end of software-as-a-service, or SaaSpocalypse.

— Marc BenioffThe Salesforce CEO rejected market fears that AI would destroy the company’s SaaS business model.

For Salesforce, the risk is especially direct. SaaS companies traditionally charge according to the number of human users, or “seats.” If an AI agent performs a salesperson’s work, companies may need fewer licenses. Customers could also ask ChatGPT or Claude to retrieve information from Salesforce and complete tasks without opening the Salesforce interface themselves.

Salesforce’s response has been to position its software as the infrastructure AI agents need. The company says AI agents working through Agentforce and Slack handled 3.2 billion tasks in the second quarter, up from 14 million in the first quarter of 2024. Agentforce’s annual recurring revenue exceeded $1.5 billion, more than 240% above the year-earlier level. Salesforce also introduced usage-based pricing tied to completed AI work rather than employee headcount.

The company reported second-quarter revenue of $11.3 billion, up 11% from a year earlier. It said new annual contract growth reached its highest rate in four years and customer turnover fell to a record low. Its first Claudeforce product, Salesforce in Claude, lets users access customer data and manage contracts inside Claude. Benioff described the strategy plainly: “Frontier AI models do not replace CRM; they depend on CRM.”

Frontier AI models do not replace CRM; they depend on CRM.

— Marc BenioffBenioff argued that advanced AI systems still rely on customer relationship management data.
About this summary

Originally published by Dong-A Ilbo in Korean. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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