Salesforce Marc Benioff Spending Millions on Anthropic Tokens Instead of Hiring New Employees

According to Marc Benioff, Salesforce estimates that it would spend close to $300 million on Anthropic Tokes (for Claude Code, and more) in 2026.

ByTanay Singh Thakur TelecomTalk

Published on May 18, 2026 10:37am IST

Highlights

Benioff said that artificial intelligence is still not at a place where it can replace engineers entirely.
Over 15,000 engineers at Salesforce are working with artificial intelligence by their side, said Marc Benioff.
What's cool is that Salesforce is witnessing huge sales revenues with its AI platform - Agentforce.

Highlights

Benioff said that artificial intelligence is still not at a place where it can replace engineers entirely.
Over 15,000 engineers at Salesforce are working with artificial intelligence by their side, said Marc Benioff.
What's cool is that Salesforce is witnessing huge sales revenues with its AI platform - Agentforce.

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Salesforce Marc Benioff Spending Millions on Anthropic Tokens Instead of Hiring New Employees

The era of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has changed everything. It has changed how small businesses work and improve efficiency, and it has also changed how big global companies like Salesforce operate. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff stopped hiring new software engineers in 2025. Benioff wanted to use AI as the efficiency gains are a lot better than hiring new employees for the same amount of money.

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Key Highlights

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said the company stopped hiring new software engineers in 2025 due to major productivity gains from AI.
Salesforce estimates it could spend more than $300 million on Anthropic tokens in 2026 for tools such as Claude Code and other AI services.
The company says most of the AI spending will go toward coding-related tasks to improve engineering efficiency and productivity.
Benioff stated that AI is not yet advanced enough to completely replace engineers, with over 15,000 Salesforce engineers currently working alongside AI tools.
Salesforce claims its AI platform, Agentforce, has already reached $800 million in annual recurring revenue, while the company has also become 30% more productive using AI.

Salesforce Led by Marc Benioff Plans to Spend Over $300 Million on Anthropic Tokes in 2026

According to Marc Benioff, Salesforce estimates that it would spend close to $300 million on Anthropic Tokes (for Claude Code, and more) in 2026. Speaking on the All-in podcast, Benioff said that productivity gains from AI, including coding agents and AI models are changing how engineers work rather than eliminating them.

The most amount of money that Salesforce will spend for Anthropic tokens will be for AI coding related tasks. This shows that AI is not really replacing people, but rather empowering them to become more efficient and productive.

AI Not at a Stage to Replace People

Benioff said that artificial intelligence is still not at a place where it can replace engineers entirely. Over 15,000 engineers at Salesforce are working with artificial intelligence by their side, said Marc Benioff. What’s cool is that Salesforce is witnessing huge sales revenues with its AI platform – Agentforce. The revenues for Agentforce has reached $800 million in annual recurring revenues, which Slack has also added new AI capabilities powered by Claude, Anthropic’s AI platform.

Artificial intelligence will continously keep getting merged more and more into the operations of big companies. This will definitely result in some people losing jobs, but people who are continously learning and evolving with AI will definitely have an edge here. Salesforce has become 30% more productive with the use of artificial intelligence, said Marc Benioff.

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FAQs

Why did Salesforce stop hiring new software engineers?

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said the company paused hiring because AI tools were delivering major efficiency and productivity gains for existing engineering teams.

How much could Salesforce spend on Anthropic tokens in 2026?

Salesforce estimates it may spend over $300 million on Anthropic tokens in 2026 for AI services such as Claude Code.

What will Salesforce mainly use AI tokens for?

Most of the spending is expected to go toward AI-powered coding and software engineering tasks.

Is AI replacing engineers at Salesforce?

According to Marc Benioff, AI is currently helping engineers become more productive rather than fully replacing them.

What is Agentforce?

Agentforce is Salesforce’s AI platform that helps businesses automate workflows and improve productivity. Salesforce says the platform has already reached $800 million in annual recurring revenue.