Salesforce Has an AI Vaporware Problem

A new report from Bloomberg raises some uncomfortable questions about Salesforce’s marketing around Agentforce, the company’s AI platform. The platform has long been criticized on social media as “vaporware” (sometimes even in pro-Salesforce posts ), and this Bloomberg report doesn’t look like it’s helping matters . Conventional wisdom—true or not—holds that we’re in the midst of something called the “SaaSpocalypse,” brought about by AI. The thinking goes that Salesforce is the prototypical example of B2B SaaS, and who needs to pay for SaaS (that is: software as a service ) when you can just vibe code your own software? But Salesforce hasn’t been without its rejoinders to this narrative—even if you set aside Agentforce. Recently, for instance, it announced “ Headless 360 ,” an initiative aimed at inserting “more than 100 new tools” into its consumer relationship management system with the goal of giving the user the ability to ignore the software’s graphical interface altogether, and simply let the AI do all the work—even easier than vibe coding, or at least that’s the theory. But Agentforce was announced all the way back in 2024 , and has had some time to cook. Unfortunately, ads like this one , in which Agentforce appears to have revolutionized service at University of Chicago Medicine, are sharpening the contrast between what was promised and what’s been delivered so far.   In that ad, you can see patients interacting with agents that convey practical knowledge, things like saying a doctor is running late and asking if the patient would like to reschedule, or steering them to a parking lot with spots available. It also appears to effortlessly book appointments and arrange for prescription refills. According to Bloomberg, those functions are still unavailable. “Patients who call the hospital system today are greeted with keypad-selection menus and routed to human schedulers,” Bloomberg says. The chatbot in the ad is “still being tested and n