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- Marc Benioff said that AI innovation is "far exceeding" client adoption.
- Salesforce's stock has dropped around 34% in comparison to its peak in December 2024.
- Benioff said that people don't understand that the Agentforce AI is at the core of the company's products.
Marc Benioff doesn't think enough companies have figured out how to adopt AI.
"Customers are getting their head around how to deploy AI," Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce, told CNBC host Jim Cramer on Tuesday.
Earlier on Tuesday, Benoiff kicked off the Dreamforce conference at San Francisco's Moscone Center with a keynote, where he touted how clients such as Williams-Sonoma and Dutch jewelry maker Pandora have adopted Salesforce's AI products.
"The speed of innovation is far exceeding the speed of customer adoption," said Benioff to Cramer. "These customers have to go back and modify massive architectures they have and systems they're running."
The comments on AI adoption come as Salesforce shares are down more than 28% compared to the same time last year and around 34% compared to their peak in December 2024. The company said in August that it cut its support staff from 9,000 to 5,000 employees, thanks to the adoption of AI agents.
When asked about the stock decline, Benioff said that the Agentforce platform has rapidly grown since the company first introduced it a little over a year ago, but there is little understanding of how the company is using autonomous bots to drive efficiency.
"People don't understand that Agentforce is part and parcel of Salesforce," said Benioff. "It is the core of every product we make now, it is the platform."
The Dreamforce conference is set to bring tens of thousands of guests to San Francisco this week as Benoiff attempts to sell software like Tableau and Slack, powered by AI. Tickets typically run from $999 to $2,299. Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Dario Amodei, CEO of AI lab Anthropic, are both scheduled to have chat sessions with Benoiff throughout the week, topped off with music performances from Metallica and Benson Boone.
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