Marc Benioff, the co-founder, chairman, and chief executive officer (CEO) of Salesforce has drawn focus in the global technology industry after saying the company would not hire additional engineers because of the growing use of artificial intelligence (AI).
Benioff, one of the most influential names in the software industry, founded Salesforce in 1999 and played a key role in pioneering the cloud-computing revolution. Under his leadership, the company grew from a startup into one of the world’s largest enterprise software firms, best known for its customer relationship management (CRM) platform and AI-driven business solutions.
According to Salesforce’s annual report, Benioff has long advocated for AI-powered business transformation and workplace automation. His recent remarks on the future of engineering jobs have reignited discussions around the impact of AI on the tech workforce.
Why Benioff won’t hire engineers
In an interview with TBPN, Benioff said Salesforce did not hire more engineers in fiscal year 2026 because the company is increasingly relying on AI-powered coding agents to handle engineering tasks. According to him, AI tools have provided the company with the additional capacity it needs, reducing the immediate requirement to expand engineering teams.
“We’re not hiring more engineers in fiscal year 2026 because I’m using coding agents,” Benioff said during the interview, according to a report by The Times of India.
Benioff added that AI technologies have boosted Salesforce’s engineering productivity by nearly 30%, reducing the need to aggressively hire software engineers.
However, the Salesforce chief later clarified that AI has not completely replaced human engineers. In an April 2026 interview, Benioff said Salesforce’s approximately 15,000 engineers were being “hugely augmented” by AI tools such as Anthropic models, OpenAI Codex, and Cursor, but human supervision remained essential.
“The model still cannot operate autonomously. We’re not at that level yet of AI,” Benioff said, while explaining that engineers are increasingly moving into supervisory roles where they oversee AI systems and coding agents.
Can AI replace engineers?
He also noted that while Salesforce’s engineering organisation had become around 30% more productive with AI assistance, the gains were not significant enough to eliminate the need for human engineers entirely.
The shift at Salesforce is not limited to software engineering. Benioff said the company has also reduced hiring in customer support as AI agents increasingly manage service-related tasks. At the same time, Salesforce has expanded its sales workforce, adding nearly 20% more salespeople to strengthen customer relationships and support AI product adoption, according to a report by India Today.
Despite growing concerns about AI replacing jobs, Benioff has maintained that technology is reshaping the role of engineers rather than making them obsolete. Industry projections continue to suggest strong long-term demand for software developers, even as AI becomes more deeply integrated into workplaces across the world.
