"It's been eight of the most exciting months of my career," Benioff said on a podcast, according to Business Insider. "I was able to rebalance my head count on my support. I've reduced it from 9,000 heads to about 5,000 because I need less heads."

In case you don't speak Silicon Valley executive jargon, Benioff was celebrating the fact that he was able to fire nearly half of his customer support division, thanks to artificial intelligence agents.

Ghoulish

"Oh no, you see, it's not because sales have fallen off a cliff, it's because we've replaced the workers with AI."

"So, your AI is just as busy as the workers you laid off would have been?"

"I don't have numbers on that."

"And, how is customer satisfaction?"

"Overall number of complaints are down."

That seems to be US specific. I've been pestered by recruiters since late 2025, almost to the 2022 levels.