Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff Has Thoughts on AI Agents, Automation, and The Future of Your Job

Channel: Alex Kantrowitz

Published at: 2024-11-27

YouTube video id: MS3xYlVc8i4

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MS3xYlVc8i4

Salesforce CEO Mark Benny off is here to
talk about AI agents and plenty more
that's coming up right after this
welcome to Big technology podcast a show
for cool-headed nuance conversation of
the tech world and Beyond we have a
great show for you today because we are
thrilled to be joined by Mark benof the
CEO and co-founder of Salesforce been
hoping to speak with him for a long time
and we're finally doing it today Mark
welcome to the show oh thank you so much
for having me I really appreciate it so
I've been deep in your interviews your
Keynotes your presentations over the
past couple of weeks trying to prepare
for this trying to think about what
you're up to at Salesforce and actually
what's interesting is through the
technology decisions that you've made
you're actually making a pretty strong
statement on labor and what I mean by
that is I think there's a common view
that we're effectively efficient on
labor that everybody in their jobs is
doing about the best that they can be
doing there this as productive as they
can be and if you give their tasks to
let's say AI they'll be gone your
approach with Salesforce especially as
you've rolled out agents and we're going
to get into that is effectively that's
completely wrong and tell me if I'm
right on this but basically what you're
saying is we're nowhere near our
capacity in our current jobs because so
much of our work is spent on drudgery so
what I'm going to do is I'm going to
automate and I'm going to extend a lot
of what people are doing and you're
going to see that it's not going to lead
to job loss but it's going to lead to a
more efficient ability to work and an
extension of the way that we work what
do you think about that thought or that
takeaway from what you've been up to
well I for I mean it's been now a few
months so we've really been able to
start talking about what we're working
on and uh it's the most excited I've
ever been about the software industry
and I think you're kind of touching the
third rail of what's going on which is
that we are building software that just
isn't helping companies man manage and
share information which is kind of what
we've been doing for the last three or
four decades but we're really going to
provide software that is really a very
much an equivalent of Labor and I think
that is a big thought that we really see
you know unlimited labor and the they
have an unlimited Workforce and the
level of abundance that that can create
for our companies and ourselves and what
that can start to mean for our society
and we can talk about some examples that
I already see happening with our
customers but we're definitely at an
incredible new moment a New Horizon for
business this is an opportunity for us
to really look at what is possible with
technology and how it really unleashes a
new capability within business itself
and look we're going to touch on agents
but I want to go back to the point here
which is I want to get your thought
really on the productivity of people you
know we've gone from the industrial era
where we're creating widgets right
someone creates up with a someone
creates an idea and then everybody's
just executing then we went to the
knowledge economy where it's like
supposed to be about knowledge but still
so much of our day is effectively making
those widgets it's filling out reports
it's moving data from spreadsheet to
another and this is sort of like the
most loow hanging fruit it could also be
creating plans right like sometimes that
stuff that we you know feel is value at
is takes very little Ingenuity uh no
insult to the marketing planners out
there I used to be one
um so can you talk a little bit about
what your feeling is there because
because you're building this set of
automation tools with Salesforce you
must feel like there's opportunity out
there to make labor better more
productive more
efficient well let's take specific
examples and try to tell some stories
and see if we can inspire people with
these stories and you can't really tell
but I'm wearing a boot here on my right
uh foot because I going to the medical
example yeah let's do it a couple months
ago I'm almost done with the boot but
it's been an interesting experience and
I'm sure that all of us have had lots of
different experiences with the
healthcare industry in the United States
and look healthc care is the largest
industry in the United States that's
number one and we all know that in the
United States we're very much our own
advocate for our health so think about
it like this um I'm going in to have my
um uh boot scanned you know my boot my
ankle my achiles scanned and uh they say
to me hey L here we're going to do this
that the other thing and a couple things
we're going to use this contrast and
you're going to want to flush this out
of your body you're going to drink eight
glass of water over the next day or two
you understand that yes and we're giving
you this the meds here and you're going
to take those and you'll finish them
won't you of course and then you really
don't hear from anybody for a month or
two and so whatever the rehab
instructions they're giving you or the
medication instructions they're giving
you or drinking the water instructions
that are giving you no you're really on
your own you're your own Advocate you're
your you're in charge of your health and
um no one is exactly going to call you
the next day and say did you drink the
water did you take the drugs did you do
you are feeling okay do you need to come
back for another scan do you need an
appointment with your doctor do you need
your Labs redone because there aren't
enough people to do that you go and talk
to any major hospital or Medical
Institution I don't you know I work with
UCSF in San Francisco it's a great
institution even there and it's one of
the largest employers in the city there
just aren't enough people to do the jobs
I mean these are jobs where patients
need very specific detailed coaching and
information and ideas and how are you
going to provide that and the answer is
with technology that software has really
gotten to the point where software can
deliver another level of the workforce
and know agents like we're calling or in
atic layer on top of UCSF you know so
that as I'm interacting with UCSF not
only do I have to wait for somebody to
call me back or to actually get an
appointment with a doctor but I'm
interacting with that agentic layer and
it's able to kind of mitigate for me all
all the medical information but also all
the UCSF services and all the scheduling
and all the things that I really want to
get done with UCSF so that idea that
even in our
largest industry we don't have enough
people to really achieve the health care
or that you could really have not just
an advocate for yourself but a guide
that would help you become healthier
that idea that's a big thought and when
you start to apply it to other
Industries like financial services and
how you're managing your wealth or um
education and how you're managing you
know how your children are being
educated or um even you know how you're
dressed ac across the board who are you
really working with kind of achieve your
goals and in many cases there's going to
be an opportunity to do that through
this agentic layer and through agents
and this idea that you're going to have
a limitless Workforce and that you're
going to have a level of abundance not
only as a consumer but on the flip side
as a CEO that my company can do things
that it couldn't do before where it was
trapped by labor so this is the unlock
this is the opportunity and this is the
New Horizon for business yeah and I'm
going to let the labor angle go in a
second but I have to keep talking about
it because the way that you describe
what's happening in medicine is not AI
replacing a doctor it's a doctor simply
cannot get on the phone with you because
H honestly at least in the US their time
and probably everywhere their time is so
prescribed by insurance and billing that
they have to be seeing as many patients
as possible and filling out as much
paperwork as possible and you can't you
don't have time to be a doctor anymore
and what this could do is it doesn't
replace it just enables the work to be
able to do the activities that they want
to do otherwise in fact we did a story
in big technology not long ago speaking
with Mayo Clinic because remember the
example of how Radiology was going to be
you know totally automated by uh
computer vision well they had 11
computer vision models working in the
Mayo Clinic and they're hiring
Radiologists that's the future I think
that we're looking at well that's
exactly right that this is about humans
with agents working together and that
idea that the labor force and
productivity is going to expand because
of that is real in the third quarter and
in 2024 we haven't had a labor force
expansion in the United States it's
stagnant but we had a productivity
expansion in the third quarter and
economists are attributing it to the
growth and expansion of artificial
intelligence and what's happening right
now as tools that we're all using so
we're able to expand productivity which
is linked to GDP and we're able to
expand our labor force without hiring
more people this is never never been
done before in the history of business
so we are definitely at a threshold
moment we are able to look at what's
happening in a new way and come up with
new ideas and in the past several weeks
as we've been rolling this out to our
customers and we have put this in
135,000 Salesforce implementations
customers just need to turn it on you
know we're talking to so many customers
but some of the folks that I'm talking
to are a lot of bank cosos and Bank
cosos are interesting because when you
talk to bank cosos here in the US or
maybe Canada or Australia in many cases
they've expanded their business with
lots of new products but they haven't
expanded geographically maybe you see a
Canadian Bank expanding in the United
States but rarely do you really see
these Banks really attempting to go
Global and the reason why is because of
the labor issues associated with going
into new markets or providing very high
quality financial services and
capabilities in new geographies that can
benefit them the same analogy could be
in healthcare by the way but this idea
that those Banks could expand and grow
when I am actually able to tell this
exact story to a bank CEO and say you're
not going to have to hire those people
to expand your US Bank into the UK that
you can take your trusted brand your
systems your ideas and yes you might
have some people on the ground but it's
not going to be absolutely constrained
to the labor force that you're hiring
that this is a new opportunity for you
that is very exciting and I think we can
start to reconceptualize business itself
the products that we're in the
geographies that we're in the size of
our Workforce that we're working with
humans and also agents together just
like you said this is a big thought this
is not science fiction this is not the
future this is now this is the present
and we're seeing some great examples and
whenever I get optimistic about this
stuff I always have to like bring myself
back to reality and say okay the best
companies like the Mayo Clinic of of
course they're going to use this to be
better at diagnostic they are going to
expand and they're going to be better at
what they do but then there's a lot of
like bottom line driven every company's
bottom line but like ruthlessly bottom
line driven companies short thinking
companies that basically want to milk
the margins they might use this stuff to
really cut workforces in a big way you
worried about that people for sure
people could rebalance their Workforce
let me give you an example as the CEO of
a large company yes I'm a very large
company 75,000 people or Fortune 100
company we're the second largest
software company in the world we're the
number one largest provider of CRM and
of our 75,000 people one of the things
that we do is we interoperate with our
customers 135,000 companies who
basically ask us about 2 million
questions a year and they do that online
and they also do that on the phone and
it's not unlike the medical
organizations that we're working with
like the one that I was just talking
about they do 24 4 million you know
basically Technology based increas a
year and 12 million phone calls so all
of us have this mix of phone calls and
emails and you know we've tried our best
to kind of use deflection systems to
kind of reduce the emails and reduce the
phone calls but it tends to be a very
kind of uh constraining thing and can
start to take up a lot of your employees
time energy focus and it's not the best
use of their time so now that we've
deployed agent force internally and if
you go to help. salesforce.com you'll
see agent force running or if you go to
the front of our website you'll see
agent force running in the United States
and then um you know we can say all
right we've got maybe eight or 10,000
people who are in support who are
working on this some number of them now
are going to get freed up to be able to
do other things and let me tell you
we're an incredible fast growing
exciting company with a lot of
opportunities I can rebalance my
Workforce and put those people who have
those very good skills working with
customers to do other things they can be
Business Development Representatives
sales development Representatives they
can do lots of other things and so we
can rebalance you know what we're doing
so that we can grow we can get more
market share we can innovate we're
obviously fighting the number one
software company in the world which is
Microsoft so we want to be able to do
more and expand and go faster and uh
that's that's very important to us right
and I guess the best run companies are
going to take that route but then I
worry about the ones that aren't run
well but let's get deeper into this
agent force um roll out that you guys
have been doing so you know there's this
like what is Salesforce meme I think
it's pretty clear it's a system that
will enable companies to do customer
service sales I used it when I was in
sales locking all of our interactions
letting my manager know what I was going
to close and what I wasn't which is
probably why I ended up moving away from
sales there's also marketing and there's
Commerce so you have all the data that
uh is in within an organization in terms
of like the way that they're interacting
with customers and Prospects and so for
you it totally makes sense to have
create agents within a company based off
of AI that let's say I'm interacting
with customer service they can actually
go into the records and go into the
policies and then decide what to offer
me or what not or help resolve my issue
but when I first heard that Salesforce
was building agents I said well that
that's kind of a slim down version of
what I thought agents were going to be
which is I always thought that agents
were going to be something that comes
from me the individual as opposed to
something that effectively interacts on
a company's behalf to better handle my
needs and so I'm curious do you do you
agree that your vision of Agents is
maybe smaller than the broader vision of
agents and if so why did you decide to
go that route outside of maybe it was
just convenient to do it as the company
you
are well Salesforce you know helps
companies connect with their customers
in new as uh that's our fundamental
emission and we do that first of all
through automating every customer touch
point so that could be managing sales
like you mention or customer service and
call centers or marketing and emails it
could be their Commerce on their website
uh it could be their analytics it could
be slack a tableau these are all
connection points between companies and
their customers and we're managing and
sharing that information using a sharing
model and a security model to help our
customers do that whether they're in
like we talked about healthc care
Financial Services or technology or
consumer product goods Etc so that first
layer is are we automating all those
touch points because for years we've
been automating their sales forces and
service forces and marketing forces and
you know their Commerce forces and now
you're right we're about to automate
their agent forces so first step is
automate all the customer touch points
so a great example is Disney I love
talking about Disney that Disney you
know we run the Disney st store if you
go to store. disney.com you know that's
Salesforce and if you go to the call
center at Disney plus that's Salesforce
the folks that are managing the sales
for the real estate and the cruise ships
and the all the different customer
interactions are all Salesforce
including the Disney guides and the
parks are all Salesforce they're all be
using tools from Salesforce to manage
the customer information and the second
part of that story is not only
automating all those customer touch
points we're building the data Cloud
we're helping put all that data together
in an Amalgamated way including the
Federation or it means the connectivity
with other data sources in the company
and why that's important is as we get
into this next level of AI it needs the
data to be intelligent it can't just run
off of a large language model which is
an intelligence model it has to be what
we call grounded or connected into the
customer data itself and not just the
customer data but the metadata the
customer data is like your phone number
the metadata is that it's a phone number
number so metadata as we know it's a
phone number here it is this is the
customer now the llm or the large
language model the AI can put it all
together and be
smarter now that you have all the data
and the AI the top layer is the agentic
layer or the agent layer so you have the
agents that are able to reach out and
you also have the database and you have
all the automated touch points all of
this for Salesforce is one piece of code
it's our core platform it's operated on
by what we call our Blazers who are
Salesforce administrators there's
millions of them all over the world now
let's say we're back to Disney and we're
in the Parks and we're having this great
experience and we're using a Disney
guide and we're cutting the lines and
we're having a great time with our kids
and we're doing our best and we're
really enjoying the day and we're on our
way to Galaxy Edge which is Star Wars
land and the rise of the resistance ride
that we love it's super high-tech but
the ride breaks and all of a sudden the
agent contacts our guide and says hey we
know you're on the way to rise of the
resistance with Mark but the ride is
broken and a couple things you need to
know I just looked at flow control
across the entire park I also just
looked at Mark's ride history and I put
these two things together and the ride
that Mark needs to go on next is
Toontown we just open it up it's the
same technology as rise resistance Mark
is going to love it take a right turn
walk five minutes you're going to be
there there's no line you're it go right
inside and that idea that the agent
could do something that that guide could
not do that is look across flow control
and my ride his history and
instantaneously make a recommendation
and then the guide says hey Mark let's
go to Toontown now and we have that
great experience that's everything we're
talking about that is agents and humans
working together to drive customer
success and this is the big fundamental
thought of how are we going to
interoperate with these agents in this
physical world and I think it's another
really great example do you anticipate
that consumers are going to have their
own Bots and they're going to interact
with AI Bots and it's just going to be
AI dialogue time
forever I think that you already can
start to see that now on your phone
where I have like about a dozen of these
AIS on my phone from all these companies
they're kind of Commodities at this
point you know Google has Gemini there's
chat gbt there's u.com there's
perplexity there's co-pilot there's all
these these things you know they're just
on your phone you're just talking to
this basically the same data set through
a very similar algorithm and it's a
commodity product at some point you're
going to be able to set up preferences
and do things with those you know tools
which you can't do today where you're
going able to like ask them to run
projects for you hey I'm going away for
Christmas I need a hotel I'm looking at
different options maybe I could go take
my kids on some kind of incredible tour
give me 20 ideas and you come back the
next day and it says here I researched
this I looked at it I laid this out
here's the ideas for your Christmas
vacation that's one idea but now let's
say I'm one of those vendors I'm Disney
I'm Hilton I'm Marriott I'm Ford I'm
General Motors you know I'm United
Airlines I'm American Airlines um
whoever it is you're going to
interoperate with us and our company as
well and you might do through an agent
right now you might just be talking
directly to us because that's the most
trusted path and we're in a new world
where yes your technology that you're
using on your phone is going to be
smarter and also the technology of these
companies is going to be smarter and
eventually they're going to interconnect
and con and uh collaborate and share and
help you to achieve your goals and
Achieve that level of abundance that
we're talking about without all of a
sudden having another person in your
life who's going to make all those
things happen you're going be able to
have it all done with the technology and
the agent yeah I think it'll be all fun
and games until you know my bot and some
companies bot you know they start to
fall in love with each other they talk
each with each other they don't do what
we need but we saw Minority Report like
20 years ago exactly Minority Report and
War games and her and uh you know Space
Odyssey all these things so you know we
the like Minority Report and War game
was one of the writers and folk creative
people who involved is actually our
futurist at Salesforce and that that
idea that we've seen a lot of that play
out in science fiction we can see where
that could potentially go but we could
also see where we are right now and this
is just an incredible moment that we're
living a new part of the future and we
could start working with technology in a
whole new way definitely okay Disneyland
question when you're on the rides hand
on the rails or hands in the air for me
I'm 65 and 300 lb so I'm just holding on
and hopefully not get thrown out of
anything that is a good strategy U your
agents are are if I'm right $2 per
conversation uh co-pilots are like 30 a
month so explain to me how the math is
going to work for companies that are
spending to I mean they have lots of
conversations with customers you were
talking earlier just about how many
times you're interacting with customers
that seems like it's going to get pretty
expensive pretty quickly how's this
going to work
you know our customers who are buying
from us they've traditionally paid like
a per user fee like you know $1,000 a
year to use our sales cloud or our
service cloud and then of course when we
moved into new products like um our
Commerce cloud or we call our sandboxes
where you can kind of you know build
your products or you know even our data
Cloud we started to do what we call
consumption pricing you pay as you go or
pay as you use or pay you know pay how
you're interacting and so for our
customers who are now using our agent
platform they're paying between call it
50 cents per conversation to $2 per
conversation depending on the volume of
conversations that they're doing and
this is I think very attractive to them
because the comparison might be a
customer interaction today that's
costing them $7 or $10 or $20 or in some
case I talked to a customer that the
customer interaction was costing them
$700 so this is a very different level
of interactivity and we're our job is to
provide value as well as the trust
Safety and Security privacy um
associated with our technology and uh
that's kind of the next generation of
the pricing model as well so it's
definitely a new technology model it's a
new business model and we couple it with
our new philanthropic model you know 25
years ago we put 1% of our Equity profit
and time into a 50 51 C3 Foundation that
was easy cuz we had no equity profit or
time or people or anything right but
today we've done 10 million hours of
volunteerism we rent 100,000 nonprofits
for free on our
service um we've given away about a
billion dollars and we also run a lot of
these nonprofits and Nos and we meet
these incredible folks and one of them
is a NGO called College possible and
college possible which you can kind of
find on the net it's amazing where they
kind of help get the college adviser
going in the high school to work with
your kid to kind of say hey what are you
interested in and we're building a
profile of your kid and here's the
profile of the college and the counselor
is there and boom all of a sudden you
get a college recommendation and the way
College possible works is that uh well
do you how
many um how many college counselers do
you think there are in California per
one basically per 100
kids maybe one there's one per 500 okay
so there's not too many and it's a
little bit like what we're talking about
in the late thing like there just isn't
enough College counselors and so you're
kind of like wondering hey is my kid
going to get that Counseling in in high
school or not so all of a sudden College
possible using an agent force and
they're building an agent and an agentic
layer on College possible look they
already have the data and the metadata
and they're already automated all the
customer touch points so they were able
to do this like in a day and all of a
sudden they're able to take their human
workers and extend them so you're saying
basically big thought yeah yeah that
it's worth it to spend that $2 per
conversation because you're getting so
much more productivity I think you're
getting something that you could not get
through it any other vehicle yeah um I
want to ask you about the future
business software because there's been a
meme that's come up we've talked about
on the show
that maybe business software is just
going to change and instead of being in
Excel you just put all your numbers in a
chatbot and you talk to your chatbot
instead of excel and some people have
suggested you know Mark benof is so out
front about this because he sees that
the future of business software may end
up be looking very different from a
Salesforce where you have all your data
somewhere but you have a proactive agent
itself that's sharing it with you and
connecting with you and connecting with
your customers so do you think that
we're going to see that fundamental
shift in business software and is this
part of it is part of this a reaction to
that well we could but let's talk about
where we are right now and could happen
you know we manage our data on something
called disc drives and we have these
disc drives and that's where we store
our data and then there's an operating
system and then on the operating system
there's a database because all the data
has to be kind of logically stored in
the database and secure and there also
has to be a sharing model so we know who
can see what data and who what data
cannot be seen we have another vendor
you know who's delivered some of this
technology Microsoft and I just saw a
story today just put on my Twitter feed
where like a thousand times you tweeted
it yeah the wrong data got in the wrong
hands and the reason why is is because
there was no sharing model and the data
was not locked up correctly and that's
something that you don't want to have
happen especially like in a regulated
industry like we talked about healthc
care Financial Services like for example
my banker can't see your balance and
your Banker can't see my balance and
that's how Financial Services is set up
and that's a security security and
sharing model so again we have the disc
drives the operating systems the
databases the security sharing model
then we have the apps and then we have
the agentic layer on top of all that you
put a big bow around it and that's how
it should work now how it's going to
look and how you're going to
interoperate and I know that you're you
one of our salescloud users and you can
get on sales first today you go to sales
first.com and see how it interoperates
but if you if you're in the US right now
we're running a test and if you go on
your phone right this very second and
you go to salesf first.com you'll see at
the bottom right hand uh side of the
screen a little like talking bubble and
if you touch it we're ready to test with
agent force right on your phone and
agent force will come right up and front
end our website and instead of looking
around our website and our products and
all that you can say hey what do you
think about Salesforce what do you think
about agent force how does it work in
financial services how does it compare
to that Microsoft co-pilot and what we
did was we took all of our customer
interactivity and all of our product
marketing information all that put in
our data cloud and then just unleash
that on agent force in front of our uh
you know uh WordPress website and um
it's I think a really good example it's
you're not authenticated so it doesn't
know who you are there's no you know
basically it isn't able to kind of put
it together that this is the products
you already have so this is the product
that you need then if you go to help.
sales.com you'll see that once you log
in as a customer we're now
interoperating with you in a really
smart and creative way as well when
you're talking to these agents so these
are real examples that you can really
get your hands on today to understand
what is that agent future going to be
like and is it 100% perfect no is it
everything that is it Minority Report is
it her is it you know all no is it
pretty good it's pretty good actually I
use it every day I think it's great and
it's a big Leap Forward I think for our
customers and I think that idea that
customers can have a better relationship
with your company because you're going
to have an agentic layer in your company
is a real idea but you're not really
afraid of let's say the claros that are
saying instead of using business
software we're just gonna read that
they're big customer vers actually and
they use still they said they were
cancelling well I I didn't get their
cancellation notice well all I saw was a
lot of provocative
statements at the same time they were
also writing on LinkedIn about how
they're loving slack and rebuilding it
you know we have many tools at
Salesforce um but look I'm a big company
so you can just tell me I have 75,000
employees let's take that as an example
those employees I have an employment
record on I hire them I pay them a
salary they have stock options they've
got benefits they have 401K plans um I
have different information about them
based on how they're doing they're doing
well they're not doing well their
performance record where do you want me
to store all that
information that's all I want to know
just tell me where you want me to store
it if you have some magical new way to
store cuz I'm using disc drives right
now so if you have a new way to store
data besides disc drives I'd like to
know about it because it's probably an
incredible investment opportunity but
for me right now I'm using you know I'm
using disc drives I have an app on there
called workday which I use I have
Salesforce I have slack like this is
what I use so if there's something else
other than that I need to know but youo
there's a lot of people making very
provocative statements that they
understand the future and they saw
movies so therefore this is what it's
going look like I'm like great I saw the
same movie great movie just show me
exactly what you're doing because I
didn't get the alien technology you know
from the from the UFO Federal you know
investigator I all I got was the disc
drives that I have today so tell me what
you're using well I messaged Sebastian
earlier from uh Clara he's been on the
show no response yet so we'll have to
save that for our next conversation why
don't he's a great executive actually's
going public it's amazing that's right
we and we had a fascinating conversation
here about how how he's automating with
AI so he's a smart person he's done a
lot of great things but I think that
idea you know hey if they have a better
way to manage thousands of people look
they're going public right yes so
they're going public they're going to
have to report their financials maybe
they have a new way to store financial
information also they're going to have
to be able to report information on
their employee including all their
employment details maybe they have a new
way to manage employment information and
and report and they're also going to
need to know all their customer
information including financial
information for Regulators so if they
have a better way to do all of that we
want to know exactly what they're doing
to manage their employee information
their financial information their
customer information what the technology
specifically but if you make a
provocative statement and say listen the
future of software is not what you're
using now it's this great new thing you
have to at least tell us what the great
new thing is otherwise how are we going
to figure it out we're not like you know
some psychics and he didn't tell you on
the I was listening okay well speaking
of provocative statements we're going to
get to what you said about Microsoft in
the second half and also some of your
suggestions about social media we'll be
back right after this and we're back
here on big technology podcast with Mark
benof the CEO and co-founder of
Salesforce Mark you are a very uh let
would say uh loud and prominent
detractor of co-pilot by Microsoft and I
hear what you're saying your argument
boils down down to co-pilot is basically
just chat GPT but it's in Outlook and um
people aren't loving it I'm going to
counter by saying they put it in
everything they put it in Outlook they
put it in Excel they put it in
PowerPoint and there are some cases that
are just better defined and work better
than necessarily the co-pilot and
Outlook so two examples talking to your
data in Excel that seems interesting it
seems like something that you'd be
excited about and then being able to
generate PowerPoints say what you will
about PowerPoints to be able to prompt a
PowerPoint presentation that also seems
pretty useful so are you say are you
going toh say here that all of it is
useless or just like the one part about
the chat within i''s say outlook look
number one you have to remember
Microsoft is our competitor and they're
in the number one software company in
the world we're number two so my job is
to compare contrast our product to
theirs and and in a recent Business
Insider report as well as we saw it on
computer world and we saw it from
Gardner and others they were testing
copilot and what they found and they
also heard it from Microsoft employees
that information was going into co-pilot
and while queries were being made
consumers were seeing information that
they were not supposed to be seeing and
in when case somebody saw a CEO's emails
now I know as a CEO I don't want anybody
seeing my emails I only want want to
have my email seen by me that's why I'm
writing these emails and um Not only was
this data kind of getting spilled and
like you know Miss shared and the
security model was kind of you know
getting misplaced but customers
reporting they just weren't getting
value from co-pilot and the reason why
is what Microsoft basically did was they
you're exactly right what you said they
just repackaged open AI product and
didn't really integrate it very well and
didn't really think from the ground up
what it was going to be in its best
situation to offer value to the
customers and I think that the
comparison is agent force and all of the
stories I just told you that are the you
know basically hundreds or thousands of
companies that are deploying agent force
now and what they're doing with it and I
hope that those are stories that I don't
hear about it's not that you know there
aren't look there's no Finish Line when
it comes to security or reliability or
availability you know in Enterprise
software we know that but I think my job
is to compare and contrast and I think
that when I do talk to reporters I do
ask them to tell me their best co-pilot
story and I've yet to meet a reporter or
even a customer who has defined a huge
valuable uh proposition for co-pilot
where it's offered value to their
company maybe microsof will pivot like
they usually do and fast follow us you
know into this new agentic world because
I think that's really where all the
action is going to be I'll tell you one
co-pilot story but it's not co-pilot
it's Claude from anthropic but similar
idea great company yeah I'm an investor
in the company they're great which I I
totally understand and I'm sure they're
listening uh we talk about them all the
time here I have a running conversation
with one Claude who I've now had to like
copy the brain and put it into a new
Cloud because I ran out of characters is
a diet coach we talk all day long about
what I'm eating the calories whether it
adheres to my Whole Food's guidance and
then it gives me a grade each day we
weigh in we talk about it the next day
and I don't know do you want to call it
a co-pilot a chat instance it's pretty
useful well maybe we'll share my details
with you a great example it's a great
example and I think that idea that
you're able to kind of get some benefit
I even talk I've I've even you know use
these things a little bit as a therapist
I'll have like some psychological issue
I'm kind of dealing with in my mind and
I'll ask it a crazy question and I've
gotten great answers you know from it or
uh you know there's so many things you
can do with large language models but
let's get clear what large language
models are and what they are not so you
know large language models really start
with this kind of NE these next
Generation algorithms that are quite
good built ba based on deep learning and
these artificial intelligence techniques
a lot of them that came out of Stanford
um really in the early kind of 2010s
2012 2013 a lot of breakthroughs even
prompt engineering was invented at
Salesforce which we're very proud of and
then what happened is we started to
expand deep learning bigger and bigger
data sets bigger bigger compute and all
of a sudden we had generative Ai and
really that's the story and this idea
that we now have generative AI made
possible by so many interesting
companies like you mentioned for example
that incredible company anthropic but
also there's other ones open Ai and and
cohere and and u.com and perplexity and
many of them they're very all very
similar actually right now so if you go
to the App Store and you download five
or six of
and put them on your phone I put them
all into a folder and try different ones
and they can draw pictures and they can
answer questions and some of them can
talk to you I think Google's Gemini is
amazing you can talk to it with almost
zero latency it's really cool so all of
that is happening all right and that is
the kind of current phenomenon where we
really start to have the kind of
generative AI cool experience like this
is really great right and the next step
is how do we actually connect it into
meaningful data sets because like for
you the next step is hey wouldn't that
be cool if that was connected to all
your medical information in real time
and to kind of continue the conversation
not only are you connected into your
medical information and your labs and
your scans and your diet and your family
history okay but now your doctor's
conversations too and now you end up in
your doctor's office and it's all right
there in front of you in a big screen
that will be incredible and we're close
to that
happening okay so we have about five
minutes left um switching topics a bit I
want to ask you a media question and I
want to ask you an Elon question media
question first are you going to sell
time well I love time it's been a lot of
fun I really enjoy it I work on it every
day I've been working on it today all
day all connected to the Elon question
we just published our fifth cover on
Elon Elon just you
know tweeted and texted be oh I don't
want any more covers you know but he
does love the covers he of the year he's
a great guy he's doing incredible things
he's brilliant he's running like 2,000
companies and the US government all at
the same time so you know it's like
we've never seen anybody like this in my
in our careers right it's just like this
person can't be human like how does what
how is this even possible but it is and
whatever he's doing um you know whatever
he's drinking whatever he's eating
whatever drugs he's taking I guess I
want some of them because I've never
seen anything like this and so on the
time
question oh I love time and time's
amazing and uh you know we we own time
we bought it five years ago and we're
doing great with time and we love it
there's been a bit of a question about
the billionaire owned Media Company
moment that we experience we had you
know you bought time but of course Bezos
uh bought the Washington Post Patrick
sunshing bought the LA times I would say
you're probably doing the best of the
three um do you think this was a a
mistake and era no I think that you know
when it comes to what's going on I can
really explain it if you're interested I
I think that in the media
business um you know you're like
software you know I'm working with
engineers and these Engineers are all
over the world
and it's a very much a Global Experience
my salespeople too I think that when it
comes to know our journalists our
journalists tend to be you know very
much represent their beliefs and their
ideas and their visions and their
aspirations for their own lives and a
lot of it does come out of certain
geographies where they're based and
because of those GEOS are certain have
certain kinds of characteristics even
political characteristics or cultural
characteristics they can kind of
permeate out into the journalism itself
so it can be a little bit difficult for
maybe a journalist I'll give you an
example in New York to understand exact
L you know what is going on dayt day in
uh pick bangal or India okay it's two
different worlds it's two different
economies it's two different even
languages it's two different you know
philosophies of life everything is
completely different and then add into
let's say a place I just was in Jakarta
Indonesia so you start to look at well
these are just different mindsets and I
think when journalists are writing
they're writing from their mindset I'm
actually finishing up an article that
I'm going to publish next week time
about all the things that we're talking
about right now with labor and you know
I'm writing from my perspective as a CEO
of a software company so journalists are
writing from their perspectives and you
have to just understand that it's not
always going to match exactly your
perspective because it may not be where
you live how you grew up your religion
your philosophy of life or your mindset
and so that tends to be I think a little
bit of the conflict and I that's what I
see playing out and I think that we are
fortunate in time that our journalists
and our especially our editor-in chief
and our CEO and others H understand this
and they try to upscale how they're
thinking about things and say hey let's
make sure that we don't go too far left
or too far right that we go down the
middle by the way it's not the history
of Time Magazine at all if you go back
to the history of Time Magazine which is
100 years it goes a little bit this way
in a little bit that way and you can
look at it if you just look at the
covers or read you know the magazine
you'll you see that there was even a
political intention there was even a
time when the owner really the founder
you know had a very specific political
ideology that it was expressing through
that I don't think that that's
appropriate based on the current world
you know we're trying to create a
neutral you know agnostic you know
provide a balanced view on both sides do
we always do that no because these are
human beings writing these stories and
they're going to write it from their
perspective and that's all that's going
on I don't think anybody should be
demonized or criticized exz for this
perspective I think that we should just
have a realistic view you have a lot of
experience in the media industry and you
know how do you see it do you think that
that's a fair way to look at what's
going on or do you think that there's
some other reality it's going to be the
I think look it's going to be the
essential question of Journalism forever
it's like how much of your own Viewpoint
do you insert into what you're doing
because ultimately your job is to
unearth facts and I think everyone is
still trying to figure out because you
know there was this view this sort of
front top down view that it should be a
certain way and people are still trying
to figure out exactly how to do it okay
we have like a minute left I'm just
going to ask you quickly then we can end
I don't want to take too much of your
time um on on around the Twitter sale
you texted Elon happy to talk about if
it's interesting Twitter as a
conversational OS the Town Square for
your Digital Life what do you mean by
that well you can see what Elon has done
has been amazing with Twitter and he's
really transformed it and done some
something that I could have never
envisioned and it wasn't what when we
were talking about buying Twitter that's
not what we were going to do we we were
really going to build something and that
was more of an application development
and deployment capability where you
really had this kind of same Twitter
feeds but you'd kind of have hyper cards
in those frames not just photos and if
you remember hyper cards which came out
of the original work in the Macintosh I
work at Apple in 1984 so I was a loved
hyper card you know that that idea that
you could have apps and an app store and
applications and not only have a Creator
economy and people building incredible
you know new you know videos and
dialogues and conversations but also
apps and that's what I always wanted
apps to be part of the Twitter verse if
you would and that was a vision that I
had which was a little different and I
talked to Elon about that but that's not
he's not interested in that he's really
very much on this hey I'm going to open
it up to everybody I'm going to turn
everyone on who's turned off before I'm
going to let be
absolutely information free for all and
no guard rails and let's just let
everyone kind of you know work it out
and it's kind of The Hunger Games is
what's going on and I think that that's
fine and everybody knows what it is and
he's doing his thing and um you know
there's section 230 preventing you know
any kind of you know liability for him
so he can just let that roll and that's
not kind of how I looked at it I had a
whole different Vision that will never
be real I IED because I did not end up
going in that direction mostly because
my investors I run a public company did
not want me to go into this crazy world
that he's he is doing a very good job
actually in so I uh I I'm not in that
world well Mark believe it or not I
first asked Salesforce to let me speak
with you 12 years ago when I was a
reporter for adage uh we put Larry
Ellison on the cover we wanted to put
you on and I have to say it was worth
the wait it's really great to get a
chance to speak with you and thank you
so much for coming on the show well I
hope it won't be another 12 years I'm
happy to come on your show anytime
please call or email me anytime or text
me I'm going to take you up on that look
forward to seeing you soon thank you all
right everybody thank you Mark and
thanks you all for listening thanks to
you all for listening we'll be back on
Friday with another Show Breaking Down
The News until then we'll see you next
time on big technology podcast