RevOps and IT leaders: here’s what the Salesforce layoffs tell you about your own 2027 budget.
Agentforce hit $1.2 billion in revenue. In that same stretch, Salesforce cut jobs again. The cuts hit sales, admin, and some tech and product roles. They did not touch the core Agentforce team or the Forward Deployed Engineers.
That split is the real story. Salesforce sells Agentforce to the market as a way to grow revenue. But inside their own walls, it’s also cutting costs. Those are two very different pitches to make to a budget committee.
They are not only talking about AI either. I’m hearing that Salesforce encourages employees to use AI freely, with no worry about token cost. They want real, daily use for people to become more proficient at AI.
If you’re building next year’s budget in RevOps or IT, this matters more than the AI headline does. A line item for AI lands differently with your CFO. Are you pitching new revenue, or fewer heads? Salesforce picked cost-cutting for part of their org. At the same time, they sold revenue growth to everyone else, while they paid for full AI access for the people who remain.
I talk to Salesforce leaders every week. Many are already redrawing their chart before anyone forces the question. They want fewer generalists. They want more people who can design a Flow, evaluate an agent, and explain the tradeoff to a VP in plain language.
Is your AI budget for next year framed as revenue or savings? My guess is most of you haven’t picked one yet.
