Hacker News Reader

I think it was mostly a branding exercise, Salesforce wanted to signal to its customers that they are on top of this whole AI thing and there is no need to go to some unknown AI startup to "AIfy" their business. So they wanted to capitalize on FOMO / fear of being disrupted while using a bad labor market to improve profitability. They succeeded in this and made news around the world, but maybe not so many new customers.

View on HN

Makes no sense - why would Salesforce's customers care if the company is using AI or not, other than when it impacts them (the customer) such as worse customer service.

This just seems a poor decision made by C-suite folk who were neither AI-savvy enough to understand the limits of the tech, nor smart enough to run a meaningful trial to evaluate it. A failure of wishful thinking over rational evaluation.

If you consider the extent to which our economy has become financialized, then you see these decisions have little to do with providing a product for customers but rather a stock for investors.

The product is the press release.

I figured the messaging is target more at investors than customers

I need to talk to Jim, where is Jim?

It was signaling to Wall Street and the rest of the tech industry. They want to be seen as profit focused and innovation driven.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com