- CRM
- MSFT
Salesforce (CRM) CEO Marc Benioff just made a product announcement at Dreamforce 2026, and he used the stage to directly criticize Microsoft in the process.
The product is called AIforce, an AI connectivity layer that lets employees access Salesforce data and run complex workflows inside third-party AI tools such as Anthropic’s Claude and Slack.
CRM stock has rallied about 34% over the past month after a difficult start to 2026, and the stock closed at $255.65 on Sept. 15. The Dreamforce announcement could determine whether that momentum continues into the fourth quarter.
Salesforce is the world’s largest customer relationship management software company. It helps businesses manage their sales pipelines and customer service operations through cloud-based tools.
The company generated $11.35 billion in revenue during its most recent quarter, beating Wall Street’s expectations on both earnings and revenue.
How AIforce turns Salesforce into an invisible data engine
AIforce acts as a bridge between AI-powered tools and the business data that companies already store inside Salesforce. Instead of employees having to log in and click through dashboards, it lets AI assistants pull up records and trigger multi-step workflows on their behalf.
The system runs on existing permissions and business rules, so employees can only access data they are already authorized to see, and Salesforce guarantees zero data retention by the AI model provider.
“AI is creating an interface revolution,” Benioff said during the keynote. “We are combining model intelligence with all the context that customers have built into Salesforce to create an intelligent, dynamic, composable system that is securely governed, built with Zero Data Retention,” he added, according to siliconANGLE.
Patrick Stokes, Salesforce’s president of applications and marketing, framed the shift even more directly in a pre-event media briefing.
“The value of Salesforce has never been in the UI. It’s been in the platform that stores the way our customers encode their business,” Salesforce Ben reported.
AIforce launched with three integrations. Claudeforce, built in partnership with Anthropic, brings Salesforce data directly into Claude. Slackforce connects that same data to conversations in Slack. And AgentforceCoworker operates inside Salesforce’s own Lightning interface.
Benioff continues his public rivalry with Microsoft
Benioff’s public jabs at Microsoft’s AI products have become a consistent part of Dreamforce. He framed AIforce as the answer to what he calls the “Fantasyland” problem, arguing that rival AI tools like Microsoft’s Copilot lack the reliable business data layer required to safely power a business.
