AI-Agents werden Salesforce vorerst nicht retten

Kevin McLaughlin für The Information:

Salesforce’s own salespeople have been using aggressive tactics to convince customers to sign up for Agentforce or include it in a bundle of other services, even if they have no immediate plan to use it, according to executives at a Salesforce customer, a firm that resells Salesforce products, and Mansfield from UpperEdge.

Mansfield said Salesforce representatives have raised the prospect of “meaningful” price increases for other Salesforce products—unless customers agree to use Agentforce. Salesforce managers have also indicated to customers that they can avoid fees for using more storage or software licenses than they signed up for if they purchase Agentforce, he added.

Most of Mansfield’s clients still have reservations about Agentforce, including its high price, relative to competitors, he said. Salesforce has been offering to include Agentforce as part of a bundle of software products that customers were already buying. The bundling makes it hard to determine how much additional spending Agentforce is driving.

“There’s no telling whether they’re ever going to actually use it,” Mansfield said. “But technically, now they’re an Agentforce customer.”

5.000 Kunden, darunter 40% in einer kostenlosen Testphase, haben seit der Einführung im Oktober 2024 einen Agentforce-Deal abgeschlossen. Laut CEO Marc Benioff hat das Unternehmen in seiner 26-jährigen Geschichte „noch nie ein Produkt so schnell wachsen sehen“. Und dennoch rechnet man für 2025 nur mit einem Umsatzwachstum von 7-8%. Das Niedrigste, das es je gab.

Wenn ihr mich fragt, sind das alles enorme Red Flags.