Latest news with #TheCircuit
San Francisco Chronicle
a day ago
- Business
- San Francisco Chronicle
S.F.'s largest employer says bots do ‘50%' of the work. Employees should be worried
As one of San Francisco's more outspoken tech leaders, Marc Benioff is no stranger to media firestorms, provoked by his unflinching stances on homelessness or surprise cheerleading for President Donald Trump. The Salesforce CEO ignited a new controversy on Thursday, when he said during an episode of 'The Circuit with Emily Chang' that artificial intelligence does '30 to 50% of the work' at his cloud computing company. Long a happy warrior for AI, Benioff tried to put a positive spin on its encroachment into his company's workforce culture. With bots taking over labor once performed by humans, he said, the human employees can 'move on to do higher value work.' But given that Salesforce has cut 1,000 positions this year, Benioff's remark stung. Salesforce is extremely influential, both as the city's top employer and a proponent of returning to the office. Benioff is also a highly visible public figure. His championing of robot labor comes at a moment of eviscerating layoffs across the tech industry. Although most companies haven't blamed automation for these cuts, they coincide with a major industry push toward AI. After Thursday's segment aired, immediately drawing more than 100,000 views, people pushed back on social media. A few self-identified Salesforce employees insisted the CEO had exaggerated, and that the human workers at Salesforce are too valuable to be replaced by software. To industry observers, Benioff is just being realistic. 'There's no doubt that AI agents are replacing, and will replace, a substantial chunk of the workforce,' said Professor Saikat Chaudhuri, faculty director of the Management, Entrepreneurship & Technology Program at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business. Chaudhuri describes this moment as having a similar tectonic effect as the Internet Revolution, which caused pain for print media and brick-and-mortar stores, before opening a new world of possibilities. It became 'something that people had to acknowledge,' Chaudhuri said, making some jobs obsolete but creating new ones. He offered an example from the travel sector. In the old days, people made appointments with human travel agents to plan their vacations, find flights and handle other logistics. By today's standards, the agents were expensive and inefficient, and became anachronisms once online booking took hold. At that point, consumers could plan trips on their own, by doing Internet searches and entering their information into web pages that had to be built by human engineers. Looking ahead, the travel agent could be revived, but not in human form. The new iteration would be a concierge-style AI bot that listens to the consumer's requests and culls flight schedules instantaneously. With booking web pages no longer needed, the engineers are, theoretically, freed up for more creative pursuits. Data gathered by economists at Stanford University corroborates that view, suggesting that Benioff, while bullish on AI deployment, isn't necessarily an outlier. Rather, he's pulling back the curtain on what's actually a widespread practice. Usage spiked over the last two quarters, with 40% of firms across the country now saying they use generative AI at work — up from 30% last December, according to a survey called 'The Labor Market Effects of Generative Artificial Intelligence.' 'It's increasing very rapidly, even surprisingly,' said Jon Hartley, a policy fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution and lead author of the survey. Silicon Valley executives, in turn, have become more unapologetic about gambling in the technology. During a recent call with shareholders, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang envisioned a future society with 'billions of robots.' At some level, corporations have an incentive to put out these messages, said Jeffrey Hancock, a professor of communication at Stanford University and founding director of the Stanford Social Media Lab. Over the past few years many businesses have invested heavily in AI programs, and most are seeking some kind of return. They at least need to convey to shareholders that the bet was worthwhile. Zeal from the C-suite doesn't necessarily mean the employees are on board. Some might feel intimidated and reject the technology altogether. Others will simply program the software to do their jobs, viewing it as a substitute rather than a helper. Many will find this new phase of work to be discouraging and dehumanizing. Two schools of thought have emerged around artificial intelligence, Hancock said. The first is a 'pilot' mindset, which casts AI as a tool to augment performance and help people achieve their goals. Hancock describes the second mindset as that of a 'passenger,' or someone who feels a loss of power and control when interacting with AI. By many measures, Benioff seems to fit in the first camp. He embraced a concept called 'agentic AI,' which refers to technology so sophisticated, it can accomplish tasks without human supervision. At its best, this class of AI should broaden possibilities for workers and create an opening for projects that previously would have been too burdensome. This is the AI that reads and summarizes your emails, manages your calendar, handles the customer service call with that person who wants to return shoes. Benioff is so enamored of this model that he refers to Salesforce's AI bots as an army of digital 'agents.' According to Chang, he spent more than $20 million to license physicist Albert Einstein's likeness for Salesforce's AI branding. Salesforce seeks to have 1 billion active agents by the end of the year. Whether Salesforce workers accept this new 'AgentForce' depends largely on how they interpret Benioff's attitude toward AI. And his remarks this week could serve as an inflection point. Because the technology is so new and could so profoundly change labor, executives are uniquely positioned to shape the mentality at their companies, Hancock said. If Benioff portrays AI as productive and liberating, then his optimism will flow down from managers to lower-level employees. Hancock calls this a 'leadership cascade.' On the flip side, if Salesforce employees construe Benioff's comments as a warning that he plans to lay off half the staff, then people will feel degraded and overwhelmed, as though they're being whip-sawed by new machinery. 'It's easier to imagine what will go away,' he said. It's much harder, at this juncture, to conceive the future benefits.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Salesforce boss reveals the stunning amount of work now handled by AI
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff revealed the software company uses artificial intelligence (AI) technology to perform a good deal of its work. He told Emily Chang, the host of Bloomberg's "The Circuit with Emily Chang," that AI "is doing 30% to 50% of the work at Salesforce now." The company has been using AI to automate in areas such as engineering, coding and customer service tasks, according to Benioff. The CEO told the outlet he thinks that will continue at Salesforce. Salesforce To Acquire Informatica For $8B To Boost Ai Capabilities "All of us have to get our head around this idea that AI can do things that before we were doing, and we can move on to do higher-value work," he said in the Bloomberg interview released Thursday. Read On The Fox Business App Benioff acknowledged that AI was "not 100% accurate" but, according to the outlet, said Salesforce has experienced roughly 93% accuracy in its own technology and its work with customers. "You'll never see me saying that we're at 100%, but I think for a lot of the other vendors, maybe they're at much lower levels because they don't have as much data and metadata, and they're not able to kind of put as much information into the model to get to a higher level of accuracy," he told Chang. Companies have embraced AI in their businesses more and more, with some even saying it will and already doing some work that was previously done by humans. AI is a "digital labor revolution that is, you know, we're probably looking at $3 to $12 trillion of digital labor getting deployed," Benioff said to Bloomberg. Amazon Ceo Says Ai Will Reduce His Company's Workforce "That digital labor's going to be everything from AI agents to robots," he continued. The technology started seeing a significant increase in uptake in the wake of OpenAI releasing its ChatGPT chatbot in late 2022, spurring major investments and innovations in the sector. AI has been a boon for Salesforce, with the firm offering Agentforce and other AI-powered tools to its customers, and for other article source: Salesforce boss reveals the stunning amount of work now handled by AI Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Time of India
3 days ago
- Business
- Time of India
After Google and Microsoft, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff says: ‘AI is doing 30% to 50% of the work' at the company
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has claimed that AI is now performing '30% to 50% of the work' at the company. The latest statement highlights the major automation potential of artificial intelligence within the enterprise software giant. Benioff made this comment during an interview on Bloomberg's The Circuit show with Emily Chang, specifically pointing to job functions such as software engineering and customer service. This statement follows similar claims from other tech leaders, including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Google-parent Alphabet's chief Sundar Pichai, who have also mentioned that AI is generating about 30% of new computer software code on some projects. Earlier, Salesforce also noted that its internal use of AI has enabled the company to reduce its hiring needs. What CEO Marc Benioff said about using AI at Salesforce In the interview, Benioff noted: 'All of us have to get our head around this idea that AI can do things that before we were doing,' Benioff said. 'We can move on to do higher-value work.' The US-based software company is also developing an AI product designed to manage tasks like customer service without human involvement. According to Benioff, the tool has achieved around 93% accuracy, even for major clients like Walt Disney Co. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Perdagangkan CFD Emas dengan Broker Tepercaya IC Markets Mendaftar Undo Back in the 2000s, Salesforce transformed software sales by delivering its customer management solution via the internet. Currently, as the tech industry shifts toward AI, Benioff is working to maintain Salesforce's leadership by deeply integrating AI across its platform, the Bloomberg report adds. Earlier, an older report by Bloomberg from February claimed that Saleforce is planning to layoff 1000 employees as part of its ongoing restructuring efforts. iQoo Neo 10 Review: Flagship-Like Gaming Experience at Just Rs 31,999! AI Masterclass for Students. Upskill Young Ones Today!– Join Now
San Francisco Chronicle
3 days ago
- Business
- San Francisco Chronicle
Marc Benioff says AI does up to 50% of Salesforce's work and predicts ‘digital labor revolution'
Artificial intelligence now performs up to half the internal work at Salesforce, according to founder and CEO Marc Benioff, who says his company is spearheading a 'digital labor revolution' that will reshape the future of work. 'AI is doing 30% to 50% of the work at Salesforce now,' Benioff said during an episode of The Circuit with Emily Chang on Thursday, citing software engineering and customer service as key areas transformed by automation. He added that the company's internal use of AI has helped reduce hiring needs while boosting productivity. Benioff's bullish stance on AI is centered around a new platform called Agent Force, which deploys 'digital employees' to handle tasks ranging from customer service and analytics to marketing and branding. Salesforce aims to reach one billion active agents by the end of the year. 'It's the fastest-growing, most exciting thing we've ever done,' he said, noting that more than 5,000 customers are already using the technology. Benioff said the company's flagship AI agent has reached 93% accuracy in customer interactions, including with major clients like Walt Disney Co. Still, he emphasized the importance of vigilance, especially around security and misinformation. 'You have to be completely paranoid,' he said. At 59, Benioff continues to embrace his role as a tech industry disruptor. A self-taught programmer who sold his first software product as a teenager, he worked under Larry Ellison at Oracle before founding Salesforce in 1999. The idea for the company, he said, came to him while swimming with dolphins in Hawaii. Salesforce went on to revolutionize enterprise software by delivering it via the internet, pioneering the software-as-a-service model and becoming a global CRM leader with clients like Apple, Amazon and Boeing. Despite his enthusiasm, he acknowledged the technology's disruptive impact on labor. Salesforce has already cut over a thousand jobs, and Benioff predicts that today's CEOs may be the last to manage entirely human workforces. He estimates AI could unlock $3 to $12 trillion in global productivity. Benioff said he meditates daily, weaves Hawaiian spiritualism into company culture, and once spent over $20 million to license Einstein's likeness for Salesforce's AI branding. He proudly describes himself as 'the Taylor Swift of tech.' To illustrate his embrace of AI, Benioff said he co-authored the company's latest business plan with an AI assistant — an exercise he described as making the CEO job 'less lonely.' He is also blunt when it comes to competition. Benioff dismissed Microsoft's Copilot as 'repackaged ChatGPT,' drawing a contrast with Salesforce's more autonomous Agent Force platform. He supports breaking up Big Tech, saying the industry has 'probably been too big.' While facing criticisms over shifting diversity initiatives and political opportunism, Benioff remains committed to corporate responsibility. You can 'do well and do good,' he said, referring to Salesforce's 1-1-1 model, which pledges 1% of company equity, product and employee time to philanthropic causes. 'I think it's a false narrative,' he said. 'The people who are creating the future are here. This isn't the first gold rush we've been through.'
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Melinda French Gates says some tech titans siding with Trump are doing ‘what some comms person' tells them instead of living by their values
Silicon Valley has seen a noticeable shift to the right, with several tech leaders engaging more closely with the current administration, a trend Melinda French Gates views critically, especially when it comes to leaders not living by their stated values. The shift in Silicon Valley in the lead-up to, and since, the presidential election has been marked. Billionaire tech titans have been in and out of the White House and Trump's residence at Mar-a-Lago, with many lending their voices to the second Trump administration. But Melinda French Gates, a veteran of the tech scene since her early days working for Microsoft, is concerned by Silicon Valley's political shift to the right, particularly when powerful individuals aren't living by their values. French Gates's ex-husband, Bill Gates, sat down with the president after he won the Oval Office and spoke with Trump about his philanthropic efforts. Since then, Microsoft's cofounder has been unimpressed by some of the actions taken by the White House, namely through its Department of Government Efficiency, formerly led by Tesla CEO Elon Musk. While Musk was a major financial and political partner to the Trump 2.0 team, the ranks of those affiliating themselves with the current administration include Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Apple CEO Tim Cook, all of whom were given prime spots for the president's January inauguration. But a wider shift to the right among the tech community has also been observed by people like venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, who said dinner parties in Silicon Valley are now split across the political spectrum, where previously most leaned left. Andreessen, who was previously a self-described Democrat 'in good standing,' told a podcast earlier this year that there are now two types of dinner parties, one being 'the ones where every person there believes every single thing that was in the New York Times that day…and that is what they talk about at the dinner party. And I'm no longer invited to those, nor do I want to go to them.' French Gates, on the other hand, said now more than ever, people in power should be sticking to their values, having previously told Fortune she intends to set more of an agenda in the U.S. Speaking on the latest episode of Bloomberg's The Circuit podcast, the billionaire philanthropist and businesswoman said: 'What I have seen in the last six months to a year is, many people who used to say one thing have absolutely shifted over here,' she said—gesturing to the right. 'A democracy is made up by our beliefs and our investments and our values. We, of all times right now, should be living those values out, not pivoting to what some comms person tells us is the right thing to do. That would be ridiculous.' Like her former husband and cofounder at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, French Gates was critical of the supreme power awarded to Tesla CEO Elon Musk as a special government employee. While the relationship between Musk and Trump has now cooled off somewhat, French Gates—an advocate for women's and girls' rights—added that handing an entrepreneur with private business interests so much power was 'unprecedented' and 'made no sense' to her. Shifts toward a more right-wing mentality have also been observed across corporate America as DEI initiatives have been scaled back. Here, French Gates said, history will not be kind to the companies that undid some of their policies fostering diversity, equality, and inclusion. 'You have to look at society,' the philanthropist said. 'Who's in our society right now and does our democracy, do our state legislatures and does our Senate or our Congress look like society? The answer is no. 'The reason you need to have of all society representative in the legislature in any governing body is because they make good policy based on their lived experience.' Data supports French Gates's opinion. While the 119th Congress is the most racially and ethnically diverse group in history, it remains far less diverse than the American population as a whole. In January, Pew Research found 139 of today's senators and representatives identify as Black, Hispanic, Asian American, or Native American, continuing a trend of Congress becoming more diverse. However, this figure is still a long way off the social makeup of the voters the legislative body represents. Pew found that non-Hispanic white people make up a larger share of Congress (74%) than the overall population (58%), indeed the gap is about as wide as it was more than 40 years ago in 1981, when 94% of congressional lawmakers were white, compared with 80% of the U.S. population. This story was originally featured on
