Salesforce CEO on how AI is shaping the future

all right lots of talk about all things Ai and the future of AI here at the world economic Forum in Davos Switzerland let me just get right to really a I would say a foremost thinker in all things AI that is Salesforce co-founder and coo Mark Benny off Mark it's just nice to see you thanks for making time for us Brian it's always great to be with you yeah all over the world yeah seriously we were at dream Force felt like yesterday so thank you um has anything surprised you about the AI talk here at Davos or at this point you've just seen and done it all well I I you know there's basically of AI technologists here at Davos who've got all their whizbang great new party tricks things they can do take a look at this it's like you know David Blaine type you know you you know what I mean like look at this I don't even how to use some of this stuff yeah like it's amazing and then you have CEOs and cosos are like listen we want to know what about margin what about productivity what about higher value customer relationships and that idea and how do those two things come together that's kind of the conversation that's really happening here and you know I'm trying to tell stories and explain to customers what we're seeing with AI and I think that as we have been kind of traveling around we see so many exciting opportunities with AI that customers are going to get much higher margins last year at Davos AI was still a little bit on the fringes not for you I mean you're seeing these things many years in advance this year I'm sensing like deeper things happening with AI what have you been seeing like what's the next iteration of all this well we've been building our Einstein platform for a decade you know that we've talked about Einstein dozens and dozens of times this week Einstein will do 1 trillion transactions which is predictive and generative transactions now which is really cool and customers are using it I just was in Milan with Gucci and very you know part of the caring group incredible company and they're like hey we're we want to use AI in our call center and it's like wait what do they really want to do here is this about you know augmentation is it about replacement is it what what are we looking at and what was cool was we brought in generative AI into our service Cloud one the number one customer service call Cent Call Center contact center product in the world as you know and these agents are using it and we are running this program for now a few months okay and they said something amazing has happened and I said what they go number one revenue is up 30% I said wow that's amazing now this is a center that in Milan you buy a product gu product all over the world and it's not something's wrong with it or you need it changed and so forth they help resolve that issue for you it's about 300 people it's great group of people incredible and they found that by using AI their employees started to become more augmented better service agents could start to sell and the market that is really cool that all of a sudden that these Gucci call center agents are Gucci sales agents Gucci Everything agents and the AI gave them the information the capability the workflow to be able to do all kinds of amazing new things that's an exciting story when you're in that Gucci call center when you leave there do you think man maybe I won't see that employee next time because of AI where where is your head after at after a visit such like that there there's no question that where AI is going is digital employees digital salesp people digital service people digital Market digital people that idea that you know we're going to have people like me and you and there's going to be digital people maybe one day I'm going to walk into the Yahoo room and I'm going to be interviewed by the AI instead of Brian I don't know I need to make it to my retirement Mark I'm not there yet Brian here's the point okay go that's not true today okay so in today's world that's not where AI is we know that AI is got a lot of problems still like it lies you know hallucinations you gave me that term I never heard of hallucinations it's hallucinating it's line it's built on Stolen data it's you know there's all kinds of problems with AI still so those issues need to kind of get worked out over time but we've all seen the science fiction movies we know where AI can go but right now ai can really you know make people a lot better and you know that I'm a huge Disney fan boy and this year I've been to Disneyland four times okay and every time I'm there and I work with Disney all over the company and if you go to the Disney Store online that's Salesforce and you talk to the call center and Disney plus that's Salesforce and if you go to Disneyland and you are you know you hire one of those Disney guides those are the people to kind of help you get through the park a little faster it was like invented by Walt Disney is like the coolest product for years I've worked with them and now you'll see they're carrying a telephone with them you know and if you look down at the phone you'll see oh wait wait Brian say the whole system of record everything is Salesforce and slack they're all talking to all the other Disney guides collaborating and they're all better because of Einstein and AI augmenting them that's be wild for you mark as a co-founder I think back 10 years where the company was 10 now 10 years forward today to see that type of Technology well it's completely cool and I have a Vision that you know my my dream is one day I walk into the park and I've opted in somehow and I've said I want to be part of this idea but I was watching the Mandalorian last night on Disney plus and as I walk into the Park Anaheim or Tokyo or Euro or whatever it is and the Mandalorian walks up to me and says hey Mark how did you like that last night I'm like that's what I'm like that's so weird home run finally making the connection and um I think for some people that's going to be a little yeah spooky and then for me it's going to be very kind of cool because I actually understand the data parts of it and I think that that's a great opportunity for Disney that'll be a next level of the Disney parks how I didn't know how to phrase this so how concerned are you about a world of digital people like I don't to me it's it is spooky well I think there's a lot of different ways to think about it and you know one of the I I pay a lot of attention to my health I think you know that and so um I get a CT scan in my heart it's called the CTA scan I've had like three over 15 years so they look inside your heart and how is it doing and you know 15 years ago I went to LA to this great scanning Center met with this person who invented the calcium scoring he did it he's like oh you're fine fine come back 5 years go yes here it is we're going to watch this you know you're older now you know then I did it a couple years ago and they're like yes you're doing great still we're still watching that great then this year they took that same CTA scan and they're able to put it into an AI wild and then the AI said the same thing and why that's exciting is yes I can go to La and meet with a guy who invented calcium scoring incredible person but think about all the people in the world who have access to a CT scanner you know we just saw the cman here's great customer Salesforce outside and that idea that now there's a c CT scanner there's somebody who needs to have a scan and you don't need the very top person in the world you have somebody who can be there a radiologist in concert with this Ai and you can have this analysis it's not perfect it's not a replacement but for sure it's a democratization there's an equinity that comes from having that capability and I think that is the way to start to really think about that again it's an augmentation story but it's a very exciting story for the future ahead of the this conference Mark and I hate name dropping especially in front of you but N I talked to the the head of the IMF and she was making a point that crystalina yes Ami AI I love her she's one of my favorite people in the world awesome great great thought leader but she was making the case that AI is going to spread and create more global inequality do you agree with that well there's no question it could you know I I've actually been saying that for decades that AI could be you know a a creator of inequality could also be a creator of equality you know I think AI has to be almost a human right to have access to H to to Ai and we need the governance around AI listen we're coming into a really critical year on elections and we all understand social media and what social media can be like and what can happen with social media and how it can go really wrong and hey the reality is over the last decade social media has been kind of show yeah and we've had a lot of talks about that nothing no no regulation do you think they'll reg how many times have we talked about that a lot it's been you and you've been consistent they've done a disastrous job on this well they do better job on we don't look at section 230 we don't look at anything MH so now we're coming into AI I think we just were at this UK safety Summit and I was very impressed that every regulator from every major country in the world was all there and that they are really looking at you know how are they going to really look at Ai and make sure that it stays on the rails maybe because they've seen the movies yeah you know so they understand where it can go you know but I think that this is a really critical moment that uh these uh Regulators need to step up and to really take this very seriously because this is real one of the when we first came in contact with you mark many years ago at this conference we talked a lot about climate and it got me thinking of all the good work you've done with your close friend Jane Goodall and not one conversation really that we have had here so far at this conference has been on climate and climate change and frankly that bothered me and do you feel as though the world is paying enough attenion right now there's a lot of conversations happening around climate yeah you may not be in them but the CEO's meetings that I'm in there is lots of conversations and a lot of good stories and a lot of progress has been made by a lot of companies on number one reducing their emissions yep okay number two is a major program that I run here which is our trillion trees you know which is the idea that we need more more biodiversity we had 6 trillion trees we've gone down to 3 trillion every trillion trees is 200 gigatons of carbon now why that is important is you know when you remember in third grade these trees can take CO2 out of the atmosphere and convert the to oxygen and we need to replenish our biodiversity we need to take care of our oceans we need to reduce over fishing protect 30% of our oceans by 203 we need to you know nurture our Coral um we need to address the issues that are going on with plastic you know there's an incredibly important treaty that's about to be signed by the UN in regards to plastic and this idea that we have so much plastic out there and the Plankton and the ocean are eating the plastic and the fish are eating the plastic and the Plankton and we are eating the fish and we all understand that I don't think anybody it's not a mystery how the World Cycle is and yeah we need to take care of our planet and this is an incredible part of what we're and we also need an ecopreneur Revolution you know entrepreneurs like me are coming out of schools I just funded a $25 million program in Stanford which combines the sustainability school and the business school to bring them together to create an ecopreneur School the idea that people can build a business that takes care of the world that the business of business doesn't have to be just business it can be about improving the world and that business can be the greatest platform for Change and this idea that businesses and CEOs can create companies to even nurture our environment that's really amazing and there's a lot of examples here at the show as well I know this issue is very close to your heart and you're putting your money where your mouth is marked but do you feel as though this presidential election in the US climate policy is also on the ballot and does that upset you well you know I I've been through this now so many times 25 years at Salesforce growing the company to 70,000 employees we we've given guidance we're going to you we're heading to to 35 billion approximately you know in Revenue this year and that idea that there have been so many presidents and administrations during that time I guess what I realized was administrations are going to change but our core values are not going to change so we know we're about Trust customer success Innovation we're about equality and we're about sustainability so we're going to care about the trees and the ocean no matter who's in office Salesforce is a different company compared to one year ago what is made a different company I I I had a breakfast with your team uh earlier on and it was a different vibe focused on the numbers focused on uh using data in in a trusted way it just it just feels like a different entity we really got to another level in our business in terms of size and scale when we became the third largest software company in the world second largest software company in Japan and we realized we needed to take our cap capabilities up that's why we've improved our margins a th basis more than th basis points in the last year which is kind of incredible and I don't think our financials have really been better our products have never been more competitive our customers have never been more successful and it's great to connect with them here at the conference and I think that management team that we were talking about people like Brian Millan who's my Chief Operating Officer and Amy waver is my Chief Financial Officer have been the most loyal lieutenants but also just phenomenal Executives in terms of their ability to operate the business it's been just a joy to work with the team lastly um before we let you go I you're a busy guy in event like this seriously um any leaders for you I have as much time as I want you've been a great friend to Yo Finance um Mark any leadership advice um you can offer the next generation of leaders people that may be coming in contact with you for the first time on our platform and they hear what you're saying how do they become better leaders look I think that you know there's so many important things that you can do I think using your business as a platform for change is probably number one I guess the thing that we did that was so great was one our 111 model you know that when we started our company we put 1% of our Equity 1% of our profit 1% of our time into a foundation it was very easy at the time because we had no employees no stock there's nobody no activist investors nobody was giving me any business but that's turned into almost a billion dollars in Grants we run 50,000 nonprofits for free on our service you know we've been able to do almost 10 million hours of volunteerism all over the world and we you know can have a huge impact even here at the conference we run a program for kids where we teach them computer science and AI you know using our facilities that our core values in our company are about giving back and that we realize that that's the gr joy in life that where it's really the fun part is we love the products I love making the customers successful the Gucci the Disney the fors do good but I also want to you know giving back is also so so much fun and I think that CEOs and entrepreneurs Rob thems of that Joy when they don't think about how they can use their business to improve the world look everybody doesn't have to do everything but everybody can do something and if you can do one thing and you can create a culture of doing something that's exciting for business and there's so many great examples of that today it is always exciting to get a little with you uh Mark benof Salesforce co-founder and coo thank you I appreciate it it's great to see you pleas really appreciate thank you

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Id: UenX9MaOGOI

Length: 16min 6sec (966 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 17 2024