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As Salesforce (CRM) rolls out the latest iteration of its Agentforce platform and plans to hire thousands more salespeople to sell it, some analysts are finally convinced that the cloud company is getting its foot in the AI door.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said at a company event in San Francisco on Tuesday that it will be “adding another couple of thousand salespeople to help sell” the new version of its Agentforce platform, CNBC reported. Benioff said the company has opened up 2,000 positions, double the number he told Bloomberg last month.
Also on Tuesday, Salesforce unveiled Agentforce 2.0, an update of its AI system that uses autonomous AI agents to support enterprise functions. New features include integration into its messaging network Slack, enhanced Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, and more accuracy.
“Agentforce 2.0 takes our revolutionary Salesforce digital labor platform to another level, with new reasoning, integration and customization features that supercharge autonomous agents with unprecedented levels of intelligence, precision and accuracy,” Benioff said in a statement.
He added that the demand for Agentforce has been “amazing,” and that “no other company comes close to offering this complete AI solution for enterprises.”
Researchers at Wedbush, led by Dan Ives, said in a note Wednesday that Salesforce will be “joining the AI party in 2025" with these announcements. The analysts said Agentforce 2.0 “is looking to enable AI to perform advanced actions for humans with elevated trust layers built in for agents paving the way for a new era of digital labor.”
And Wedbush believes that Salesforce’s focus on CRM, which helps businesses build and improve relationships with customers, is well positioned “to capture its fair share of market expansion as the AI monetization phase” catalyzes growth.
Over the next 12 to 18 months, Wedbush says CRM presents $7 trillion digital labor market opportunity, making it “a clear 2nd derivative beneficiary of the AI Revolution” that could add approximately $80 per share.
Salesforce stock was up almost 3% in pre-market trading Wednesday. Shares closed down 1.75% Tuesday at $350.97 per share. Wedbush maintained its outperform rating on the company and its 12-month price target of $425 per share.