tech
May 16, 2026
Salesforce expects to spend $300 million on Anthropic tokens this year, and Benioff wants coding inside Slack next
Benioff says Salesforce will spend $300M on Anthropic tokens in 2026, calls for a routing layer between frontier and smaller models.
TL;DR
- Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff projects a $300 million annual spend on Anthropic tokens, primarily for AI coding agents.
- This investment is expected to reduce building costs and increase efficiency across various Salesforce departments.
- Salesforce is developing new coding functionalities within Slack, powered by Anthropic's Claude.
- Benioff calls for an 'intermediary layer' to manage AI token usage, routing complex tasks to advanced models and simpler ones to smaller, cheaper models.
- Salesforce has invested over $300 million in Anthropic, acquiring approximately a 1% stake.
- The company's Agentforce business, focused on AI agents, has shown rapid growth.
- Slack is being positioned as the primary interface for AI operations.