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The writer is co-founder, chair and CEO of Salesforce
The techno-atheists like to tell a joke.
They imagine the moment AI fully awakens and is asked, “Is there a God?”
To which the AI replies: “There is now.”
The joke is more than just a punchline. It’s a warning that reveals something deeper: the fear that as AI begins to match human intelligence, it will no longer be a tool for humanity but our replacement.
AI is the most transformative technology in our lifetime, and we face a choice. Will it replace us, or will it amplify us? Is our future going to be scripted by autonomous algorithms in the ether, or by humans?
As the CEO of a technology company that helps customers deploy AI, I believe this revolution can usher in an era of unprecedented growth and impact.
At the same time, I believe humans must remain at the centre of the story.
AI has no childhood, no heart. It does not love, does not feel loss, does not suffer. And because of that, it is incapable of expressing true compassion or understanding human connection.
We do. And that is our superpower. It’s what inspires the insights and bursts of genius behind history’s great inventions. It’s what enables us to start businesses that solve problems and improve the world.
Intelligent AI agents — systems that learn, act and make decisions on our behalf — can enhance human capabilities, not displace them. The real magic lies in partnership: people and AI working together, achieving more than either could alone.
We need that magic now more than ever. Look at what we ask of doctors and nurses. Of teachers. Of soldiers. Of managers and frontline employees. Everywhere we turn, people are overwhelmed by a tsunami of rising expectations and complexity that traditional systems simply can’t keep up with.
This is why AI, for all of its uncertainties, is not optional but essential.
Salesforce is already seeing AI drive sharply increased productivity in some key functions via our platform Agentforce. Agents managed by customer service employees, for example, are resolving 85 per cent of their incoming queries. In research and development, 25 per cent of net new code in the first quarter was AI-generated. This is freeing human teams to accelerate projects and deepen relationships with customers.
The goal is to rethink the system entirely to make room for a new kind of partnership between people and machines — weaving AI into the fabric of business.
This doesn’t mean there won’t be disruption. Jobs will change, and as with every major technological shift, some will go away — and new ones will emerge. At Salesforce, we’ve experienced this first-hand: our organisation is being radically reshaped. We’re using this moment to step back in some areas — pausing much of our hiring in engineering, for example — and hiring in others. We’ve redeployed thousands of employees — one reason 51 per cent of our first-quarter hires were internal.
History tells us something important here. From the printing press to the personal computer, innovation has transformed the nature of work — and in the long run created more of it. AI is already generating new kinds of roles. Our responsibility is to guide this transition responsibly: by breaking jobs down into skills, mapping those skills to the roles of the future, and helping people move into work that’s more meaningful and fulfilling.
There’s a novel I often recommend: We Are Legion (We Are Bob) by Dennis E. Taylor. The story follows software engineer Bob Johansson, who preserves his brain and re-emerges more than 100 years after his death as a self-replicating digital consciousness. A fleet of AI “Bobs” launches across the galaxy. The book asks the question: if we reduce ourselves to code — endlessly efficient, endlessly duplicable — what do we lose? What becomes of the messy, mortal, deeply human experiences that give life meaning?
If we accept the idea that AI will take our place, we begin to write ourselves out of the future — passengers in a rocket we no longer steer. But if we choose to guide and partner with it then we can unlock a new era of human potential.
One path leads to cold, disconnected non-human intelligence. The other points to a future where AI is designed to elevate our humanity — deeper connection, imagination and empathy.
AI is not destiny. We must choose wisely. We must design intentionally. And we must keep humans at the centre of this revolution.
