ABOUT $2 a chator new AI agent from Salesforce can answer customer questions and schedule appointments—without the need for a human being to supervise.

AI agent technology, which Salesforce announced earlier this week at its annual Dreamforce eventit has the potential to disrupt jobs currently held by human workers. Nearly three million people were employed as customer service representatives in 2022, with the majority (66%) being women, according to Data USA.

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Salesforce knows its new technology has the power to replace what could have been human jobs. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said Tuesday that the new AI agents allow companies to forgo hiring new employees or “gig workers” during tough times, to Bloomberg.

“We want to get one billion agents with our customers in the next 12 months.” Benioff said.

^{Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images}

Enacting a hiring freeze and then charging AI with filling the gaps is a strategy used by other companies such as The “buy now, pay later” payments firm Klarna.

A year ago, Klarna simply decided not to hire – not even replacements for the people who left. Employees leaving and a Powered by AI The hiring freeze has cut Klarna from 5,000 people last year to 3,800 at the end of August, with no layoffs.

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In late August, Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski told the Financial Times that the company wants to reduce its workforce to 2,000 employees within the next few years with this approach.

“Not only can we do more with less, we can do much more with less,” he told the Financial Times.

Klarna is not the only company using artificial intelligence to automate tasks that were once done by humans. Within the next year, three out of five large US companies intend to use AI for everything from financial reporting to marketing campaigns. according to a June study from Duke University.

Goldman Sachs estimates that AI can replace or affect over 300 million jobs by 2030, that affect writing, translationAND customer service concerts.

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