Sean Zanni/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images
- Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff is rebranding many products under the Agentforce name.
- Benioff says customers prefer AI agent terminology over cloud, based on recent focus groups.
- Salesforce might rename the entire company Agentforce, Benioff told Business Insider this week.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff is done talking about the cloud and is renaming everything after its AI software Agentforce — perhaps even the whole company.
Salesforce slapped the "Agentforce" moniker on many of its products and services recently. And when the company reported earnings this week, there were updated names for several offerings. Sales is now "Agentforce Sales." The Service offering is "Agentforce Service," and Platform became "Agentforce 365 Platform," and so on.
A Salesforce employee recently told Business Insider that the company might change its official corporate name to Agentforce. This was mentioned partly in jest. However, during an interview with Benioff late on Wednesday, the CEO confirmed this is a possibility.
"It might," Benioff he told Business Insider. "That would not shock me."
There's precedent for such radical moves in the industry, as companies shift focus to new technologies or strategies. Mark Zuckerberg famously changed Facebook's name to Meta. Google's cofounders also changed their corporate name to Alphabet. Jack Dorsey's Square became Block.
From cloud to AI agents
Salesforce was born in the cloud, so that tech buzzword has been attached to many products over the years: Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Data Cloud.
Now customers don't want to hear about the cloud anymore, Benioff said in the interview. He learned this during recent focus groups ahead of the company's annual Dreamforce conference in October. Instead, clients want to talk about AI agents.
"I dropped the word cloud totally," he said. "I did it at Dreamforce. Did you notice I never used it in the keynote? We learned in focus groups customers don't talk about cloud anymore. They just want to talk about their agentic interface."
Salesforce renamed Data Cloud, its data platform, to "Data 360" and announced the change during Dreamforce. Data 360 is central to the company's 2026 strategic plan, which Benioff also discussed with Business Insider during the interview.
Salesforce has made a huge bet on AI agents. Some insiders have cast doubt on the initiative, but Wednesday's earnings showed some positive signs as the company raised its revenue forecast.
Have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at astewart@businessinsider.com or Signal at +1-425-344-8242. Use a personal email address and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely.
Leave a Reply