sales force Chief Executive Marc Benioff said Wednesday it was time to calm fears of a “surpocalypse” following the company’s latest earnings report.
“This ‘Thirspocalypse’ story was such nonsense,” Benioff told Jim Cramer on CNBC’s “Mad Money.” “The Frontier model relies on CRM. It is not a replacement for CRM.”
Salesforce stock rose more than 12% after the enterprise software giant delivered a strong quarter and issued better-than-expected guidance. Best known for its customer relationship management software, Salesforce also owns workplace messaging service Slack and data analytics platform Tableau. Salesforce is a holding in Cramer’s Charitable Trust, a portfolio used by CNBC Investing Club.
Benioff said the numbers show that AI is enhancing rather than cannibalizing businesses, pointing to the very companies that were once seen as a threat to traditional software-as-a-service (SaaS). Benioff said nine out of the 10 largest artificial intelligence companies use Salesforce and Slack, and spending on the platforms has jumped 435% compared to a year ago.
Earlier this year, investors worried that the increasing capabilities of AI models, which would allow companies to accomplish more with fewer subscriptions to traditional software, would undermine the industry’s pricing model. Wall Street was also concerned that AI could be used to create software tools that companies are paying for. Salesforce stock has fallen 22% this year through Wednesday’s close. If the stock closes Thursday in after-hours trading, a large portion of the year-to-date decline would be erased.
Benioff also said that Salesforce’s growing partnership with Anthropic provides a concrete example of his point. The companies on Wednesday announced Claudeforce, a plug-in that lets sales reps use Anthropic’s Claude to tap into customer data stored in Salesforce to perform tasks such as composing emails and updating records.
Benioff argued that rather than replacing Salesforce, AI models like Claude rely on the customer data, business context, and workflows stored on Salesforce’s platform, positioning his company as the foundation for AI agents. “Salesforce is first and foremost in the data business,” the CEO said. “These AI models require this level of intelligence, security, and control for their users.”
