Salesforce targets $300m in Anthropic tokens for 2026

Salesforce, a US customer relationship software company, expects to spend nearly US$300 million on Anthropic tokens in 2026, with much of that tied to coding and AI software development, Benioff said on the All-In podcast.

The CEO said AI coding tools are helping engineers work faster rather than replacing them, after Salesforce said in January 2025 that it would not hire software engineers in 2025 and instead planned to add 1,000 to 2,000 sales staff.

He also said in April that Salesforce would hire 1,000 graduates and interns, while the company has invested more than US$300 million in Anthropic and Benioff told Bloomberg in June 2025 that AI handled 30% to 50% of its workload.

🔗 Source: The Economic Times

🧠 Food for thought

Implications, context, and why it matters.

Salesforce spreads its AI bets

Salesforce has backed Anthropic since its series C round and kept investing through later financings, including series G in February 2026 1.
The partnership is not exclusive. Agentforce 360 lets customers choose models from OpenAI or Anthropic, making Salesforce a multi-model platform 2.
Salesforce also builds its own AI model, CodeGen, for Einstein for Developers and Einstein for Flow 3.
Engineers at Salesforce use several AI tools, including Google Gemini and GitHub Copilot, in line with the company’s multi-provider approach 4.

Faster coding shifts the pressure points

Internal data found that AI lifted the amount of code reaching production by 30%, which moved delays to testing and code review 5.
That shift changes the work of senior software engineers. They spend more time on system design while AI handles early code analysis and fix suggestions 5.
Across software, AI coding tools have become a requirement for staying competitive. Anthropic’s Claude Code can help win enterprise accounts before broader use follows 1.
Salesforce brings partners such as Anthropic inside its trust boundary, so customers can use outside models while data and AI traffic stay within Salesforce’s secure environment 6.