Software behemoth Salesforce is strengthening its alliances with AI powerhouses OpenAI and Anthropic to enhance its flagship AI platform, 'agentforce 360', amid lukewarm adoption rates.
During this week's Dreamforce conference, chief executive and co-founder Marc Benioff declared: "We're so thrilled to have our relationship with OpenAI", as reported by .
"You guys are becoming a critical part of our infrastructure, of everybody's infrastrucutre", he added.
Brad Lightcap, OpenAI's chief operating officer, announced with Benioff: "We believe that AI systems are going to unlock potential for humanity and levels that we today can't even comprehend".
OpenAI integration
Salesforce revealed that its expanded alliance with the ChatGPT creator will enable customers to access 'agentforce' within the LLM.
Additionally, customers will gain the ability to construct AI agents and prompts utilising OpenAI's GPT5.
The American software company also intends to incorporate a commerce capability within its operations, enabling retailers to reach GPT users whilst retaining complete oversight of customer data.
Claude steps in
Furthermore, Salesforce announced an enhanced partnership with Anthropic, whose Claude model will facilitate AI deployment in heavily regulated sectors, such as finance or healthcare.
Claude is scheduled to become fully embedded within Slack, Salesforce's widely-used corporate messaging platform, enabling teams to securely access AI tools within the application. Speaking to reporters at Dreamforce on Tuesday, Benioff stated: "[Many companies] rely on us for the fundamental backbone of their mission, critical operations of their business, from the manufacturing of their products, to sales, services or support".
He asserted: "Every tech revolution, clients pick Salesforce because they believe best in class. They're the most innovative, and they've got that handled now".
Slack as an 'agentic' system
The firm is also positioning Slack as an "agentic operating system", by incorporating AI directly into the platform that staff already utilise.
Throughout his keynote address, Benioff demonstrated how ChatGPT and Codex can condense intricate discussions, compose replies, and even execute coding assignments within Slack, eliminating the need to switch between applications.
Lightcap outlined to the audience that there are two methods for achieving this outcome.
"One is, we've got to integrate with the systems and tools that people use. Two is, we've got to be able to create new experiences for people to do more. And three, it's all got to be trust based". "And we've got to get that right", he asserted.
Obstacles ahead
Nevertheless, doubts persist regarding whether Salesforce can convert these collaborations into substantial revenue expansion.
Agentforce uptake has remained constrained thus far, whilst shares have dropped approximately 15 per cent in 2025.
Market observers will be monitoring closely to determine whether integrating OpenAI and Anthropic models throughout ChatGPT, Slack, and Salesforce's proprietary platform can halt this decline. However, Salesforce's series of announcements this week indicates its intention to maintain a central position in the enterprise AI sector.
