Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff Says AI Won’t Kill Entry-Level Jobs and He’s Hiring 1,000 New Grads to Prove It

By Trey Thoelcke Updated Apr 28, 10:34AM EDT · Published Apr 28, 6:40AM EDT

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Salesforce (CRM) CEO Marc Benioff is breaking ranks with the prevailing tech-industry message on AI and jobs.
He says Salesforce will hire 1,000 new graduates for entry-level jobs.

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Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff Says AI Won’t Kill Entry-Level Jobs and He’s Hiring 1,000 New Grads to Prove It — © Pattanaphong Khuankaew / Getty Images

Salesforce (NYSE: CRM | CRM Price Prediction) CEO Marc Benioff is breaking ranks with the prevailing tech-industry message on artificial intelligence (AI) and jobs. In a Fortune interview published April 27, 2026, Benioff pushed back on the idea that AI will wipe out entry-level white-collar work and said Salesforce will hire 1,000 new graduates to back it up.

The statement matters because it cuts against a chorus of tech CEOs warning that agentic AI will absorb junior knowledge work. Benioff is staking out the opposite position while running one of the most aggressive enterprise-AI roadmaps in software. Salesforce just reported Agentforce ARR of $800 million, up 169% year over year, with 29,000 deals closed since launch and 2.4 billion agentic work units delivered.

Salesforce booked $286 million in Q4 restructuring charges after prior workforce cuts, even as Benioff now positions human hiring as a competitive lever. His framing positions agents and humans as collaborators on one shared platform.

Markets are watching closely. The stock closed at $180.18 a share on April 27, 2026, down 31.9% year to date, despite FY26 revenue of $41.5 billion and a new $50 billion share repurchase authorization.

Benioff is betting that grad hiring plus Agentforce scale validates his $63 billion FY30 revenue target. Watch Q1 FY27 results (revenue guided to $11.03 billion to $11.08 billion) for whether agent monetization keeps accelerating while headcount expands, or whether the labor pitch and the AI pitch start pulling apart.

About the Author Trey Thoelcke →

Trey has been an editor and author at 24/7 Wall St. for more than a decade, where he has published thousands of articles analyzing corporate earnings, dividend stocks, short interest, insider buying, private equity, and market trends. His comprehensive coverage spans the full spectrum of financial markets, from blue-chip stalwarts to emerging growth companies.

Beyond 24/7 Wall St., Trey has created and edited financial content for Benzinga and AOL's BloggingStocks, contributing additional hundreds of articles to the investment community. He previously oversaw the 24/7 Climate Insights site, managing editorial operations and content strategy, and currently oversees and creates content for My Investing News.

Trey's editorial expertise extends across multiple publishing environments. He served as production editor at Dearborn Financial Publishing and development editor at Kaplan, where he helped shape financial education materials. Earlier in his career, he worked as a writer-producer at SVE. His freelance editing portfolio includes work for prestigious clients such as Sage Publications, Rand McNally, the Institute for Supply Management, the American Library Association, Eggplant Literary Productions, and Spiegel.

Outside of financial journalism, Trey writes fiction and has been an active member of the writing community for years, overseeing a long-running critique group and moderating workshop sessions at regional conventions. He lives with his family in an old house in the Midwest.