Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff Reveals Steve Jobs’ Influence on Agentforce’s AI Strategy

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff revealed the profound impact a decade-old conversation with Steve Jobs had on the company’s groundbreaking AI initiative, Agentforce. Benioff shared the intimate story during a press conference last week, just hours before Salesforce launched its most ambitious project yet.

Salesforce is positioning Agentforce, a suite of AI-powered autonomous agents, as a game-changer for the CRM giant. The new platform aims to change how companies interact with AI, moving beyond simple chatbots and into intelligent systems capable of complex reasoning and decision-making.

Benioff’s recollections of meeting the late Apple co-founder show how Jobs’s precise approach to product development influenced Salesforce’s strategy for Agentforce.

To quote Benioff himself:

“In 2010, Steve Jobs called me. He said, ‘Mark, I need you in my office today.’ I came in with a few of my executives. We had a great relationship; he helped me a lot with Salesforce, and I was very grateful for that.

We’re sitting there and he says, “Well, Mark, you know, I’ve been working on the iPhone since 2007.” I said, “I know, Steve, and you sent me one. Thank you.” And he said, “Now let me show you my new iPad.” He pulled out two iPads, two different sizes. He says, “But I’ll only have one size. This 10-inch. I’m not making the other smaller size.”

I asked why, and Steve said, “All the products have to fit on my coffee table.” Then he added, “Mark, one more important thing: At Apple, I only focus on one thing at a time. For the last three years, I’ve only focused on the iPhone. And now I’m only going to focus on the iPad.”

I asked him why, and he said, “Because we only have one A team at Apple, and I want to lead it. I’m going to do that.”

That was really inspiring to me. When we started working on Agentforce, I told my teams, with that inspiration, “This is everything we do. We don’t do anything else in Salesforce. We do nothing but Agentforce.” This is the biggest, most exciting piece of technology we’ve ever worked on.

What’s coming through this platform is amazing. When customers get their hands on it, they’re going to have an amazing experience. All we’re going to do in Salesforce is Agentforce, nothing more. When you get to Dreamforce, you’re going to see a huge shift toward Agentforce.

Sure, we’re just a startup. We’re lucky. We’ve hired about 75,000 people so far. $38 billion in revenue this year. I think we had more cash flow than Coca-Cola last quarter. But the thing is, we’re just getting started.

It’s amazing. I think some of our executives in the company who aren’t technologists or don’t come from software, people who are on our management team who are key functions, didn’t fully appreciate it. I had to spend time with them and explain from an IT perspective that what’s coming out now is unlike anything I’ve ever seen in my life.

The way we have woven this into our platform is simply an art. The work of Srinivas, David, Steve, MK (Muralidhara Krishnaprasada) – it’s incredible. MK came to me and said, “Mark, you’re making a huge mistake.” I said, “What happened?” He said, “I want you to change the name of the entire company to Agentforce. Right now, you don’t understand the fundamental implications of what happened.”

So this is an incredible moment. This is a moment where we’re all very excited. The entire management team is very excited. When Brian and I look at how do we implement this across the business, across the customers, how do we take and deliver this billion-dollar agent goal, how do we really leverage this first-mover advantage—this isn’t just an additional pilot that was such a terrible experience for our customers. We’re not asking them to do this on their own.

We can take ordinary people and make them great AI people. That’s our dream at Salesforce. We want everyone to be a pioneer when it comes to technology, and now these customers can understand that. Salesforce put AI in Trailblazer. That’s really cool. That’s a moment for us that we’ll never forget.”

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Benioff’s revelation underscores the interconnected nature of Silicon Valley’s innovation ecosystem. As Salesforce aggressively moves into AI with Agentforce, it’s clear that Jobs’ influence extends beyond Apple, shaping strategies across the tech landscape. The move puts Salesforce at the forefront of the AI ​​revolution in enterprise software, potentially forcing competitors to accelerate their own AI initiatives.

But as the company races to deploy a billion AI agents, investors and industry observers will be watching closely to see how this ambitious strategy impacts Salesforce’s bottom line and market position. Agentforce’s true test will be its ability to deliver measurable value to customers while maintaining the human touch that has long been a hallmark of Salesforce. In the high-stakes world of enterprise AI, Benioff posits that sometimes, in order to move forward, you have to look back.