New Delhi, May 18(CXO Media): Salesforce is increasing spending on artificial intelligence while keeping software engineer hiring on hold.
The company plans to spend nearly $300 million on Anthropic tokens in 2026, according to comments made by CEO Marc Benioff on the All-In podcast. A major share of the spending will go towards AI coding systems and software agents used by engineering teams.
The move comes as Salesforce continues its freeze on software engineer hiring after reporting more than 30% productivity gains from internal AI tools. Benioff had earlier said the company would avoid adding new software engineers because AI systems were helping teams write code faster and reduce development time.
Salesforce engineers are currently working with Anthropic models, OpenAI Codex, Cursor and the company’s own Agentforce systems to automate parts of software development. Benioff said engineers are increasingly supervising AI-generated code rather than working without automation.
Salesforce has also expanded its partnership with Anthropic, whose Claude models are now being integrated into Slack, Agentforce and enterprise workflows. The company’s AI business, Agentforce, has already reached nearly $800 million in annual recurring revenue, showing how AI is becoming central to Salesforce’s growth strategy.
