Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) plans to hire 2,000 people to sell its artificial intelligence products, doubling its previous hiring target announced last month, as the cloud software giant sees strong demand for its enterprise AI solutions.

What Happened: CEO Marc Benioff revealed the expanded hiring plans at a company event in San Francisco on Tuesday, noting overwhelming interest with "9,000 referrals for the 2,000 positions." The hiring push comes as Salesforce prepares to launch Agentforce 2.0, its next-generation AI platform, in February 2025.

The increased focus on AI sales represents a strategic shift for Salesforce, which laid off over 7,000 employees two years ago amid economic pressures. The company's headcount stood at 72,682 as of Jan 31, down about 1% from two years earlier.

Salesforce's AI capabilities are already showing promising results in customer service applications. Benioff highlighted that the company's AI-powered help page now handles 32,000 conversations weekly, with only 5,000 requiring human escalation – down from 10,000 previously.

Salesforce's Agentforce 2.0 serves as a digital labor platform that transforms core business operations. The AI agents autonomously handle sales lead nurturing, provide real-time coaching, prequalify job candidates, and manage customer support 24/7.

Why It Matters: The expanded hiring initiative aligns with Salesforce's ambitious vision for enterprise AI. Benioff has positioned autonomous AI agents as the next evolution in enterprise software, setting a target of deploying a billion AI agents within a year through the company's Agentforce platform.

Major customers including Accenture, The Adecco Group, and Indeed are implementing Salesforce's AI solutions. Indeed's CIO Anthony Moisant said the company is leveraging Agentforce to achieve goals including reducing time-to-hire by 50%.

The move intensifies competition with Microsoft Corp. (NASDAQ:MSFT), which has been rolling out its own Copilot AI tools.

With Agentforce 2.0's launch approaching, Salesforce is positioning itself at the forefront of enterprise AI automation, focusing on practical applications that can demonstrate immediate business value rather than theoretical capabilities.

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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.