Salesforce Is Burning Billions on AI That Still Doesn’t Work

“We are in the midst of an AI revolution for business,” said Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, as he introduced Einstein GPT in 2023. He promised a new era of enterprise intelligence powered by generative AI, natively integrated into the company's suite of business applications.

But over a year later, Salesforce’s AI ambitions are falling short weighed down by overpromising, under-delivering, and a growing list of missed expectations. While competitors build foundational models and verticalized AI ecosystems, Salesforce is stuck in neutral, leaning on third-party infrastructure, vague roadmaps, and rebranded tools that so far haven’t delivered meaningful returns.

Marc has worked to reposition the company as more than just a CRM giant. He has spent the last few years pushing Salesforce beyond traditional cloud software, into the realm of machine learning and generative AI attempting to remake the company for what he calls “the AI era.” Yet the results so far haven’t matched the rhetoric.

In early 2023, Salesforce rolled out Einstein GPT, branding it as the first generative AI tool built directly into CRM. Just months later, the company renamed it Einstein 1 Copilot, alongside the launch of Prompt Builder, Copilot Studio, and the Einstein Trust Layer. These tools were pitched as game-changers for business productivity. Yet behind the rebrands and naming shifts, many customers and partners have struggled to identify any real gains.