Salesforce now admits its AI agents were unreliable after cutting 4,000 jobs

Ooops, they fired 4,000 people and only then realized the AI was not ready.

After laying off 4,000 employees and automating with AI agents, Salesforce executives admit: We were more confident about llms a year ago

Salesforce, one of the world’s most valuable enterprise software companies, is pulling back from its heavy reliance on large language models after encountering reliability issues that have shaken executive confidence. Sanjna Parulekar, Senior Vice President of Product Marketing, acknowledged that trust in AI models has declined over the past year, according to a report by The Information.
“All of us were more confident about large language models a year ago,” Parulekar stated, revealing the company’s strategic shift away from generative AI toward more predictable “deterministic” automation in its flagship product, Agentforce. This admission comes after Salesforce reportedly reduced its support staff from 9,000 to 5,000 employees—approximately 4,000 roles—through AI agent deployment, as CEO Marc Benioff disclosed in a podcast appearance. According to a report in CNBC, Benioff said while discussing the impact of AI on Salesforce operations, “I’ve reduced it from 9,000 heads to about 5,000, because I need less heads.”
The company is now emphasizing that Agentforce can help “eliminate the inherent randomness of large models,” marking a significant departure from the AI-first messaging that dominated the industry just months ago.