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Salesforce Bets Its Future on Pay-Per-Task AI Agents

The company is shifting from seat licenses to consumption billing to monetize AI agent work.

Overview

  • Salesforce reported in its first-quarter fiscal 2027 results that it delivered 3.8 billion Agentic Work Units, processed 28.6 trillion tokens, and saw Slack AI usage rise 347%.
  • Company executives said Agentforce passed roughly a $1 billion annualized run rate and Agentforce plus Data 360 together produced about $3.4 billion in AI-related annual recurring revenue.
  • To sell agents into other apps and charge by usage, Salesforce introduced Headless 360 and Flex Credits and acquired usage-billing provider m3ter on June 8 to build metering and invoicing infrastructure.
  • The firm has reshaped costs with cuts of roughly 1,000 roles in February and an 86-role WARN filing in early June while setting full-year FY27 revenue guidance at $45.9 billion to $46.2 billion and facing a steep year-to-date stock decline.
  • Key risks and near-term signals to watch are whether Flex Credits scale into significant consumption revenue, whether existing customers expand agent bookings, and whether general-purpose AI platforms shrink demand for human-seat licenses.