AgentForce could shift support workers into other roles

Transcript

Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.

1. 18:20

   shine. What is an unknown question mark that you have about the future of AI and Salesforce in the next 12 to 36 months that you are spending a lot of time thinking about? The number one thing that I think about every single day is how to explain to customers the huge value that they can get from AgentForce. That's why I felt it was so important that I'm eating my own dog food, sorry to my dogs here, you know, that I've moved my whole support infrastructure to the Agentec platform. I will move my whole sales platform to the Agentec platform as well. I'll move my whole company onto AgentForce for no other reason than to show my customers what is possible.

2. 19:04

   We are in such a new world right now in terms of what is possible today versus even just six months ago that customers do not understand this and what it can mean for them. That is really all I am focused on. One focus is agent force. And my second one is, how do I find as much fuel in my company to drive the first? That is key. And we mentioned also expanding distribution. These three things are on my mind continuously.

3. 19:33

   How do you think it's most likely that you will find the fuel? The way I'm going to find the fuel is by using agent force. I mean, agent force is going to let me rebalance my workforce. I have 9,000 people in support today. I will not have as many people in support in the future because I'll be able to move more of those folks into sales or into other functions in the company where I'm looking to hire people. And that is a big opportunity for me as a CEO.

4. 20:00

   Respectfully, Mark, do you move them or do you just do the logical thing, which is remove the cost and actually have higher margins, which is a perfectly logical thing for any business leader to do? How do you think about that? A lot of them will get moved. We have a lot of opportunity at Salesforce and we have a lot of growth happening. So for the vast majority of those, we're going to be able to move them and find new opportunities for them. And we'll be very excited about that.

5. 20:26

   Even in the layoffs that we had, which were very dramatic in the company two years ago, we have hired a lot of those employees back into the company. How do you reflect on those layoffs? Well, I think that when you think about and kind of no mud, no lotus, we went through this two years ago, it was a moment where I don't want to do layoffs. I hated it. Everybody then looks at you as you're doing this terrible thing. Nobody likes the word. It's a horrible thing, but the company had to be restructured. I had no choice. I was up against the wall. I had a clear vision of what the future was, but the current reality did not match the potential for the company for where it could be as evidenced by today's financials and what's possible today.

6. 21:09

   So layoff is an important tool for CEOs to be able to use, to be able to prepare for a company for the future. And nobody wants to hit the button. Nobody wants to take the action. No employee wants to hear the words. It sends chills down everybody's spine, including my own. But sometimes it's very important for us to do that. I mean, you can see that organizations that need to get rebuilt, this is a good tool for them to use and CEOs should not be afraid. And I think that that example that Salesforce went through for the last 24 months is a good one.

7. 21:44

   We mentioned at the beginning, the art telling the story and the science, the learnings that