Illustration for: Salesforce adds 6,000 enterprise customers in three months amid AI risk concerns
Business & Startups

Salesforce adds 6,000 enterprise customers in three months amid AI risk concerns

3 min read

Salesforce’s recent surge—6,000 new enterprise accounts in just three months—has drawn attention far beyond the headline numbers. While the growth story reads like a steady climb, it unfolds against a backdrop of mounting unease about generative‑AI deployments at scale. Executives acknowledge that every rollout brings a new set of operational tests, especially when the technology sits at the front line of customer interactions.

The company’s own risk team has been flagging potential pitfalls, noting that the very speed of adoption can expose vulnerabilities that were previously theoretical. As more firms embed AI into sales, service and marketing pipelines, the pressure to balance innovation with safeguards intensifies. Hasan, a senior voice on the project, warns that the moment these tools face real‑world users, the margin for error shrinks dramatically.

“The minute you start to put this tech in front of customers, there’s the risk of what could happen if the AI says the wrong thing or does the wrong thing. There’s plenty of folks out there that are intentionally trying to get the AI to do the wrong thing.”

"The minute you start to put this tech in front of customers, there's the risk of what could happen if the AI says the wrong thing or does the wrong thing. There's plenty of folks out there that are intentionally trying to get the AI to do the wrong thing." Hasan noted that while the underlying large language models powering Agentforce -- including technology from OpenAI and Anthropic -- are broadly available, the enterprise governance infrastructure is not. You don't need Agentforce to go build a chatbot," Hasan said.

"What Agentforce helped us do more quickly and with more confidence is build something that's more enterprise-ready. So there's toxicity detection, the way that we handle PII and PII tokenization, data security and creating specific firewalls and separations between the generative tech and the functional tech, so that the AI doesn't have the ability to just go comb through all of our customer and order data." The trust concerns appear well-founded. The Information reported that among Salesforce's own executives, trust in generative AI has actually declined -- an acknowledgment that even insiders recognize the technology requires careful deployment.

Corporate travel startup Engine deployed an AI agent in 12 days and saved $2 million For Engine, a corporate travel platform valued at $2.1 billion following its Series C funding round, the business case for Agentforce crystallized around a specific customer pain point: cancellations. Demetri Salvaggio, Engine's Vice President of Customer Experience and Operations, said his team analyzed customer support data and discovered that cancellation requests through chat channels represented a significant volume of contacts -- work that required human agents but followed predictable patterns.

Related Topics: #Salesforce #enterprise customers #generative AI #large language models #OpenAI #Anthropic #Agentforce #PII

Six thousand new enterprise accounts in a single quarter is a concrete metric that stands apart from the broader AI chatter. Salesforce’s Agentforce platform now supports 18,500 customers, up from 12,500 just three months earlier, reflecting a 48 % jump in adoption. Executives point to that surge as evidence that practical AI deployments are beginning to outpace speculative hype.

Yet the rapid expansion comes with a cautionary note. “The minute you start to put this tech in front of customers, there’s the risk of what could happen if the AI says the wrong thing or does the wrong thing,” one executive warned, adding that malicious actors are actively probing for vulnerabilities. Risk remains high.

The quote underscores an unresolved tension between growth and safety. It is unclear whether Salesforce’s current safeguards can keep pace with the increasing attack surface as its user base widens. While the numbers suggest momentum, the longer‑term impact of these risk factors remains uncertain.

Stakeholders will likely watch how the company balances expansion with responsible AI governance.

Further Reading

Common Questions Answered

How many new enterprise customers did Salesforce add in the three‑month period mentioned in the article?

Salesforce added 6,000 new enterprise accounts over a three‑month span, raising its total enterprise customer base significantly within a single quarter.

What AI platforms power Salesforce’s Agentforce, and why does the article highlight governance concerns?

Agentforce runs on large language models from OpenAI and Anthropic, and the article stresses that while the models are widely available, the enterprise governance infrastructure needed to control them is still lacking, raising risk concerns.

By what percentage did the number of customers using Agentforce increase, and what does this indicate about AI deployment trends?

Agentforce’s customer count rose from 12,500 to 18,500, a 48 % increase, indicating that practical AI deployments are accelerating faster than speculative hype in the enterprise sector.

What specific risk does Salesforce’s risk team associate with putting generative AI in front of customers?

The risk team warns that deploying generative AI directly to customers can lead to the system saying or doing the wrong thing, especially when malicious actors try to manipulate the AI into harmful behavior.