Hiya and welcome to Eye on AI. On this version…A breakdown of the AI information from Salesforce’s Dreamforce…OpenAI debuts its browser…Google makes a most cancers analysis breakthrough…and backlash in opposition to the data-center increase builds.
I spent final week on a reporting task in San Francisco. Whereas there, I dropped by Salesforce’s big Dreamforce convention. Salesforce founder and CEO Marc Benioff made plenty of headlines—however most likely not for the explanation he needed.
En path to the convention, Benioff had given an interview to the New York Instances wherein he’d been complimentary of President Trump and mentioned he would welcome the Nationwide Guard being deployed to San Francisco. By the tip of the week, Benioff had apologized for that stance—saying he had spoken out of an abundance of concern in regards to the security of these attending his convention—after being sharply criticized by famed Silicon Valley investor and advisor Ron Conway, who resigned from the board of Benioff’s charitable basis in protest, in addition to Lauren Powell Jobs, Steve Jobs’ widow and president of the Emerson Collective, who lambasted Benioff’s place in an op-ed within the Wall Avenue Journal.
All of this was a distraction from what was really going down at Dreamforce, the place Salesforce introduced a slew of recent instruments to make it simpler for its clients to construct and deploy AI brokers. Few tech firm CEOs have staked as a lot on the promise of “agentic AI” as Benioff. How is that wager going? Nicely, to evaluate from Dreamforce, the reply is—like a lot that’s occurring in AI proper now—one thing of a blended image.
On the one hand, Salesforce says that its “Agentforce” options have seen the quickest adoption of any product the corporate has ever launched. However, alternatively, not counting brokers in Slack—which I’ll cowl additional in a second—the corporate has solely about 12,500 clients (or simply over 8% of its buyer base) having adopted Agentforce up to now 12 months, and solely 6,000 of these are paid engagements. (Salesforce permits clients to experiment with Agentforce at no cost, up till a sure utilization threshold.) These comparatively low numbers—which helped clarify Salesforce’s somewhat tepid current income development—had been weighing on Salesforce’s inventory.
However on the convention, Salesforce additionally issued improved guidance for its future revenues, saying that, because of Agentforce, natural gross sales development would speed up to above 10% 12 months over 12 months in 2026 and proceed that approach. The corporate now forecasts $60 billion in annual gross sales by 2030, forward of analysts’ consensus view. That projection despatched Salesforce’s refill 5% on the day, and shares have continued to climb over the previous week. So what’s actually occurring right here?
Innovation out-stripping adoption
In his keynote at Dreamforce Benioff, acknowledged that there was at the moment a “bifurcation” between fast shopper adoption of AI chatbots, equivalent to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and comparatively slower enterprise adoption of AI. And through a press convention afterwards, he went additional, saying, “That is the second the place this know-how innovation [is] out-stripping buyer adoption. Our job is to get these clients into adoption mode. The best way to do it’s by exhibiting them clients who’re front-runners on this, so while you take a look at these clients, they’re making it occur.” Salesforce can also be doing this by creating extra “forward-deployed engineers” to work instantly with its clients, serving to them construct AI brokers. The corporate appears to have realized up to now 12 months that enterprises will want Salesforce to carry their hand greater than was true with its conventional SaaS merchandise.
I toured a bit of the conference corridor branded “Agentforce Metropolis” to take a look at a few of these early adopters and their AI brokers. A number of, like Williams & Sonoma’s AI agent that provides clients recipe recommendation—and by the way in which, additionally suggests cookware they may have to make that roast or pie—appeared a bit gimmicky. That recipe agent would possibly give the corporate extra touchpoints with a buyer, but it surely wasn’t clear it might instantly translate into increased gross sales. Extra attention-grabbing was PepsiCo’s AI agent that enables it to supply higher customer support to the numerous small Mother-and-Pop shopkeepers and bodega house owners who inventory Pepsi merchandise however who don’t essentially get lots of consideration and recommendation from Pepsi’s gross sales reps. Extra promising nonetheless is Dell’s use of Salesforce’s AI brokers to automate components of its provide chain, together with onboarding new suppliers, which has lower its common onboarding time from months to days.
However Salesforce executives universally acknowledged that it might take time for extra firms to observe the lead of Dell or PepsiCo. Adam Evans, Salesforce’s govt vp and basic supervisor of Salesforce AI, informed me that he has spent a lot of the previous 12 months making an attempt to point out clients tips on how to transfer past experimentation with AI brokers. “What’s onerous is to create brokers that scale, that do issues persistently, you could work into an enterprise course of to create worth,” he mentioned.
Slack because the interface to all of Salesforce’s software program
To assist clients with that, Salesforce unveiled a number of new Agentforce options at Dreamforce. There’s an Agent Builderthat enables a person to easily describe what it needs an agent to do; the system then robotically units it up, with a lot much less guide tinkering that was wanted beforehand. There’s a brand new voice interface for AI brokers, powered partially via OpenAI’s voice fashions, that improves interplay with brokers. There’s an Agent Script instrument that lets companies set up rule-based processes for a part of a given course of and use the much less predictable, however probably highly effective, reasoning of a big language mannequin (LLM) for different components of the method. It additionally launched a brand new vibe-coding instrument known as Agentforce Vibes, which is geared toward builders already expert at constructing Salesforce purposes, however permits them to create these apps, together with extra refined agentic workflows, utilizing pure language.
Maybe the most important information is that Salesforce is hoping to place Slack—which Salesforce purchased in 2020 for $27.7 billion—as the primary “conversational gateway” to all of Salesforce’s software program, together with its Agentforce choices. Denise Dresser, Slack’s CEO, informed me that the thought is that as an alternative of getting to be taught to configure and run processes in Salesforce’s Advertising and marketing Cloud or its Service Cloud, a Slack person may merely message an AI agent inside Slack that can run these processes for them utilizing Salesforce’s software program within the background.
Slack has additionally created “data brokers” that may floor info from a selected Slack channel and carry out sure actions—serving to them onboard a brand new rent for, occasion, or set up software program on a brand new laptop computer, instantly from Slack. Dresser additionally informed me that she thinks Slack is the best interface as a result of it will probably incorporate each person-to-person and crew interactions on the identical channel in which you’ll be able to have people and groups interacting with AI brokers, whereas some AI firms are solely optimizing their merchandise for human-to-AI collaboration.
Dresser actually could have some extent about chat as the brand new interface to software program. It’s a imaginative and prescient that AI firms like OpenAI and Anthropic are additionally pursuing. And a few of these AI firms are projecting the thought even additional, envisioning a future the place AI brokers use their coding talents spin up bespoke software program on the fly to deal with lots of the duties that now require enterprise software program, like, um, Salesforce. However whether or not that imaginative and prescient will come to fruition or whether or not conventional SaaS merchandise will live on, simply with AI front-ends, stays to be seen. One factor that’s clear from Salesforce’s expertise up to now 12 months because it began rolling out AI brokers is that enterprise adoption will most likely run behind over-hyped market expectations.
With that, right here’s extra AI information.
Jeremy Kahn
jeremy.kahn@fortune.com
@jeremyakahn
If you wish to be taught extra about how AI can assist your organization to succeed and listen to from business leaders on the place this know-how is heading, I hope you’ll think about becoming a member of me at Fortune Brainstorm AI San Francisco on December eighth and ninth. Amongst these confirmed to look to date embrace Google Cloud chief Thomas Kurian, Intuit CEO Sasan Goodarzi, Databricks CEO Ali Ghodsi, Glean CEO Arvind Jain, Amazon’s Panos Panay, and lots of extra. Apply now to register.
FORTUNE ON AI
Marketing leaders say AI is rewriting how brands reach Gen Z and millennials: ‘Forget what you know; learn this’—by Jessica Coacci
Exclusive: Early AI darling LangChain is now a unicorn with a fresh $125 million in funding—by Sharon Goldman
Sam Altman wants to ‘treat adults like adults’—but can OpenAI keep ChatGPT safe after opening the door to erotica?—by Beatrice Nolan
Empathy is the most under-hyped factor of the AI transformation era, American Express exec says—by Sydney Lake
EYE ON AI NEWS
OpenAI launches its long-awaited AI-powered internet browser. The corporate debuted ChatGPT Atlas, an online browser with a built-in conversational assistant designed to behave as a “companion” whereas customers navigate the web. Obtainable globally on macOS (with Home windows, iOS, and Android variations coming quickly), Atlas contains an agent mode for Plus and Professional subscribers that enables ChatGPT to take real-world actions like reserving reservations, enhancing paperwork, or managing emails. The discharge marks OpenAI’s most direct problem but to Google and Perplexity, each of which have already launched their AI-capable browsers. The shares of Google-parent Alphabet fell sharply on the information. You may learn extra from Fortunehere.
Walmart companions with OpenAI on commerce. Inside the subsequent few months, U.S. ChatGPT customers will be capable to purchase most Walmart merchandise instantly within the chatbot utilizing its new Prompt Checkout function, the 2 firms introduced. The transfer is an indication of what could also be a brand new paradigm of “conversational buying”—and it means Walmart will share buy knowledge from ChatGPT transactions with OpenAI, a notable concession given retailers’ traditional grip on such knowledge. You may learn extra from the Wall Avenue Journalhere.
Examine finds AI copilots may save U.Ok. well being service 43 minutes per staffer per day. That’s the results of a research that seemed on the deployment of Microsoft’s 365 Copilot throughout 90 completely different organizations which might be a part of Britain’s Nationwide Well being Service. That would translate to hundreds of thousands of hours per 12 months if rolled out throughout the whole well being service. You may learn extra from The Telegraphhere.
Anthropic pushes again after criticism from White Home ‘AI czar.’ Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei wrote a weblog publish rebutting social media assaults from David Sacks, the White Home’s crypto and AI czar. Sacks accused the corporate of pursuing a method of “regulatory seize”—making an attempt to lift fears of existential threat from AI with a purpose to foyer for AI regulation on the state and federal stage that might favor its personal merchandise over these of rivals. Amodei argued that Anthropic aligns with the Trump administration on key AI priorities—citing reward for competitiveness-focused govt orders and a July assembly the place he spoke with President Trump—whereas nonetheless opposing a proposed 10-year state-level moratorium on new AI legal guidelines. He additionally defended Anthropic’s help for California’s not too long ago enacted AI regulation, which requires AI firms constructing highly effective AI methods to report the outcomes of their in-house safety-testing and supplies extra whistleblower-protection to workers of these firms. Amodei mentioned the corporate had employed each Republicans and Democrats to coverage positions and that its fashions had been much less politically-biased than some rivals’. You may learn extra from my Fortune colleague Beatrice Nolan here.
OpenAI researcher retracts announcement of math breakthrough. OpenAI researchers, together with Sebastien Bubeck, claimed that their mannequin GPT‑5 had solved 10 troublesome math issues that had been initially proposed by mathematician Paul Erdős (who died in 1996) and had remained unsolved so far, and that it had made important progress on 11 others. However Thomas Bloom, who maintains the net record of “Erdős issues” rapidly debunked this, exhibiting that GPT-5 had merely discovered obscure revealed options that had not beforehand been delivered to his consideration, somewhat than producing new proofs. The incident sparked sharp business criticism—Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis known as the scenario “embarrassing”—and highlighted issues about whether or not the mathematical and scientific reasoning capabilities of many AI fashions is overhyped. You may learn extra from TechCrunch here.
AI researcher Andrej Karpathy says AGI continues to be not less than a decade away. Andrej Karpathy, a distinguished AI researcher who was a part of the founding group at OpenAI and headed AI at Tesla for various years, appeared on the Dwarkesh Podcast and mentioned that synthetic basic intelligence (AGI) is probably going nonetheless a few decade away. His place contradicts claims by various AI researchers at firms equivalent to OpenAI and Anthropic that human-level AI is imminent. Karpathy argued that as we speak’s AI brokers “simply don’t work,” describing them as unreliable, unintelligent, and incapable of dealing with advanced, steady duties, and mentioned AGI will emerge progressively somewhat than via a sudden breakthrough. Karpathy added that progress ought to be considered via the lens of regular financial and technological development somewhat than hype about machines changing people anytime quickly. You may pay attention and watch the podcast episode here.
EYE ON AI RESEARCH
Google researchers use AI to assist spot genetic drivers of most cancers. Researchers on the tech large created DeepSomatic, a brand new open-source AI mannequin that helps scientists analyze most cancers genomes extra rapidly and precisely. The instrument—which relies on a convolutional neural community, an older type of AI structure that’s notably good at analyzing visible knowledge—is ready to distinguish between genetic mutations an individual is born with and those who develop in most cancers cells. In early exams, it outperformed current strategies of detecting these cancer-related genetic adjustments, making it particularly helpful for finding out hard-to-analyze cancers like childhood leukemia and mind tumors. Google is open-sourcing each the AI mannequin and the coaching knowledge set it used to create it. You may learn Google’s weblog publish on the analysis here.
AI CALENDAR
Oct. 21-22: TedAI San Francisco
Nov. 10-13: Net Summit, Lisbon
Nov. 26-27: World AI Congress, London
Dec. 2-7: NeurIPS, San Diego
Dec. 8-9: Fortune Brainstorm AI San Francisco. Apply to attend here.
BRAIN FOOD
The backlash in opposition to the AI-driven knowledge heart increase is rising worldwide. The New York Instances examined how native communities from Chile to Eire are more and more against knowledge heart development of their backyards because of the unfavourable environmental impacts and power calls for these warehouses full of laptop chips convey. The comprehensively reported story is certainly value studying. Practically 60% of the world’s largest knowledge facilities at the moment are situated outdoors the U.S., usually in locations the place electrical energy and water methods are already fragile, the paper reported. Residents in affected areas report worsening blackouts and water shortages, whereas governments—longing for funding and AI infrastructure—have supplied tax breaks and low-cost land, usually with little regulation or transparency. Tech firms say the initiatives convey jobs and funding and declare they’re minimizing environmental affect, however critics argue they’re depleting very important sources and hiding their true footprint via subsidiaries and nondisclosure agreements.
The information heart build-out is sparking a rising backlash, led by environmental activists. Whether or not this backlash will gradual the information heart increase, blacken the repute of AI firms and their merchandise with customers, or hasten the roll-out of AI regulation globally stays to be seen. However it’s positively a development to look at. It’s unclear if the backlash will spur AI researchers to seek out different AI strategies which might be much less environmentally-costly—or if AI itself will result in clear power breakthroughs, in say fusion energy, which may compensate or negate the environmental harm the know-how is inflicting at the moment. However one can hope.
