Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff: All Software to Be 'Agentic,' Targeting 100 Million AI-Driven Lead Follow-Ups

San Francisco – Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has declared a transformative vision for the company's software portfolio, stating that "every single piece of software we sell" will eventually become "agentic." This strategic shift aims to leverage artificial intelligence to automate and enhance business processes, including handling an unprecedented volume of sales lead follow-ups.

Benioff's remarks, shared via a tweet by SaaStr.Ai's Jason Lemkin, highlighted the potential for AI to manage tasks that were previously beyond human capacity. > "Our AI will handle 100 million lead follow-ups we just never had the capacity for," Benioff stated, emphasizing the scale of efficiency gains anticipated from agentic AI. This vision underscores Salesforce's commitment to integrating autonomous AI agents, known as Agentforce, deeply into its customer relationship management (CRM) ecosystem.

Salesforce has already seen significant adoption and internal benefits from its agentic AI initiatives. As of May 2025, over 8,000 customers are utilizing Agentforce, contributing $100 million in annual order value. Internally, the company has rebalanced 500 customer support employees to higher-impact data and AI roles, resulting in $50 million in savings. Benioff also noted that increased productivity from AI has led to a decision not to hire more engineers in 2025, with engineering velocity increasing by 30%.

The company views agentic AI as a "new labor model, new productivity model, and a new economic model," according to Benioff. Salesforce's Agentforce has demonstrated its capability by autonomously handling 380,000 service requests on help.salesforce.com with an 84% resolution rate, requiring human escalation for only 2% of queries. This shift is part of a broader strategy to deploy one billion agents by the end of 2025, aiming to make Salesforce a comprehensive provider of agentic AI services.

While the integration of AI agents promises substantial operational efficiencies and new growth opportunities, discussions around their accuracy and impact on the workforce persist. Benioff has cited a 93% accuracy rate for Salesforce's agents, a figure that sparks debate regarding its suitability for all enterprise-level, mission-critical tasks. Nevertheless, Salesforce continues to invest in the underlying infrastructure, including the recent acquisition of Informatica, to bolster Agentforce's capabilities and ensure a robust foundation for this new era of digital labor.