Salesforce's AI Bet: $300M on Anthropic, Engineer Hiring Pause

Salesforce expects to spend nearly $300 million on Anthropic tokens in 2026. This spending will largely power AI coding tools. Here's the thing: CEO Marc Benioff says AI is transforming how engineers work, not replacing them. Over 15,000 engineers at Salesforce already use AI tools like Agentforce and Anthropic's Claude models. This has led to a productivity increase of over 30% for the company. Agentforce, Salesforce's AI platform, now generates around $800 million in annual recurring revenue. The company is pausing new software engineering recruitment due to these AI-driven efficiency gains. However, Benioff clarifies that AI is not yet advanced enough to fully replace engineers. Instead, engineers are moving into supervisory roles, guiding AI-generated code. Salesforce continues to hire in other areas, such as sales. The bottom line: Companies are investing heavily in AI to boost efficiency and reshape how human employees work, impacting hiring strategies.