Salesforce Faces Job Cuts Amid Increasing AI Competition

Salesforce has laid off employees due to AI concerns, while the company also invests in AI expansion. AI competition pressured the company in the first quarter. Salesforce has a strong focus on AI usage growth, including a recent deal with m3ter and security upgrades.

Salesforce is cutting roughly 86 jobs at its San Francisco headquarters in a fresh round of layoffs spanning its Agentforce AI, MuleSoft and Marketing Cloud teams, though people familiar with the move said core Agentforce engineering was largely spared. It marks the company's third round of cuts in nine months, following a February 2026 reduction of fewer than 1,000 roles across marketing, product and data teams.

The reductions land in tension with Salesforce's AI growth narrative: the company recently said annualized revenue from its Agentforce agentic-AI product had passed $1 billion, even as it trims headcount tied to that same push. Management has framed the moves as reshaping the workforce around AI rather than retrenchment, but the pattern feeds investor questions about how much agentic AI will cannibalize seats in traditional enterprise software.

The backdrop is a weak stock: CRM shares are down more than 30% so far in 2026, lagging the broader software group as investors weigh decelerating subscription growth against the long-term AI opportunity. Markets will watch whether AI-driven efficiency shows up as margin expansion in coming quarters or simply as recurring restructuring charges.