Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has acknowledged that many of his enterprise customers are still struggling to understand and implement artificial intelligence, even as the company is increasing its investment in AI-powered platforms. Speaking in an interview with CNBC’s Jim Cramer at the opening day of Dreameforce 2025, Benioff said that the pace of innovation is already outstripping the awareness and readiness of the customer. “Customers are getting their head around how to deploy AI,” Benioff said. “The speed of innovation is far exceeding the speed of customer adoption.”

Stock slump amid AI push

Benioff’s remarks comes at time when Salesforce shared remain down by more than 30% from their December 2024 peak and 28% lower year-over-year. The company has also faced skepticism from investors despite the roll out of its Agentforce platform. For those unaware, the Agentforce platform uses autonomous AI bots to streamline operations. In August this year, Salesforce also announced that it has reduced its support staff from 9000 to 5000 employees. The company revealed that its decision to cut down jobs was driven by the efficiency gains from AI agents.“People don’t understand that Agentforce is part and parcel of Salesforce,” Benioff told Cramer. “It is the core of every product we make now.”

AI adoption still in early stages

During his keynote at the San Francisco’s Moscone Center, Benioff revealed that Salesforce’s clients such as Williams-Sonoma and Pandora have successfully completed the AI integration. But he also added that most of the companies are still facing significant architectural challenges. “These customers have to go back and modify massive architectures they have and systems they’re running,” he said.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff sells $546,547 worth of company stock

In related news, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff sold company shares worth nearly $546,547 on September 26, 2025, Investing.com reported. Citing regulatory filings, the report says that the sale was executed under a pre-arranged trading plan, involving 2,250 shares of common stock sold in multiple transactions at prices ranging from $241.4027 to $244.279. On the same day, Benioff exercised options to buy 2,250 shares of Salesforce at $161.50 each, for a total value of $363,375.After these transactions, Marc Benioff now owns 11,911,571 shares of Salesforce common stock. Indirectly, he owns 10,000,000 shares through the Marc Benioff Fund LLC and 1,07,000 shares by trust.