Salesforce's Benioff warns of AI 'false prophets' while promising true profits by 2030

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has warned investors to beware "false prophets" peddling AI salvation, as the CRM giant bets on its "agentic enterprise" vision to drive annual revenue past $60 billion by 2030. The topline prediction came as the SaaS biz reported Q2 [PDF] financial reaults for the three months ended July 31, with …

[cd]

"There's a lot of folks trying to be prophetic," he said during the investor Q&A. "Some of them are prophets and some of them are false prophets. It's going to be up to you to separate the wheat from the chaff."

Could an AI do that?

[OhForF']

>Could an AI do that?<

Sure, but it would probably use much more resources for the same reliability as something simpler like

if (Math.random()<0.5) then

return "Hail the true AI prophet";

else

return "He is not the messiah, he is a very nasty boy";

end;

[Tron]

Still in the bubble.

quote: We're not having to take back a lot of the things we've said over the last three years.

The last three years have been within the AI bubble. Bubbles usually last for around 4 years + or - a bit. So it is easy to get things 'right', up until people realise that they have been buying snake oil and walk away, en masse.

So what happens to companies that bet the farm on a bubble technology? I'll just throw that question out to their shareholders.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, whatever.

[Pulled Tea]

Some of them are prophets and some of them are false prophets. It's going to be up to you to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Mark, you're not beating that whole accusation that AI hype is basically a cult in rationalist dress.