As Wall Street worries that advancements in artificial intelligence will hurt enterprise software companies, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff told CNBC’s Jim Cramer a large language model is “just a commodity feature” that strengthens his company’s products.
“All these large language models are the same. We just want the lowest cost one, then we plug it in,” Benioff told Cramer. “We’ve got all the customers’ data. We have our killer apps. Those are not commodities.”
Large language models, or LLMs, are AI models trained on data that can have a variety of functions, including data analysis, summarization and chat bot services. Leading hyperscalers, namely Google, Microsoft and OpenAI, have poured billions into developing the technology.
Salesforce stock has had a tough year, even as the broader tech sector has surged. Shares have been dragged down by Wall Street’s fears that AI could render some enterprise software products redundant. Salesforce shares are down more than 25% year-to-date, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite is up more than 21%.
Benioff, in the interview with Cramer, did not address his company’s declining share price in 2025. But he suggested investors who “moved away” from the company over the past year “somehow think software companies are under duress from AI when the opposite is true.”
“Software companies are being bolstered by AI, powered by it,” Benioff continued.
Salesforce shares popped on Thursday after the company posted a huge earnings beat, with the stock finishing up 3.66%. While revenue came in a little light, Salesforce upped its revenue guidance for the current quarter.
Benioff boasted about the performance of Agentforce — his company’s product that automates sales and customer service workflows — over the past quarter. On the earnings call, he said annualized revenue from Agentforce came in at at more than $500 million, growing 330% from a year earlier. Benioff also said on the call that Salesforce has closed over 18,500 Agentforce deals in the year since the product was introduced, with 9,500 as paid transactions.
“It is the fastest growing product I have ever seen in the history of Salesforce,” Benioff told Cramer.
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