{"id":50696,"date":"2026-05-25T19:13:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T19:13:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/50696\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T19:13:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T19:13:19","slug":"salesforce-has-an-ai-vaporware-problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/50696\/","title":{"rendered":"Salesforce Has an AI Vaporware Problem"},"content":{"rendered":"

A new report from Bloomberg<\/a> raises some uncomfortable questions about Salesforce\u2019s marketing around Agentforce, the company\u2019s AI platform. The platform has long been criticized on social media<\/a> as \u201cvaporware\u201d (sometimes even in pro-Salesforce posts<\/a>), and this Bloomberg report doesn\u2019t look<\/a> like it\u2019s helping matters<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Conventional wisdom\u2014true or not\u2014holds that we\u2019re in the midst of something called the \u201cSaaSpocalypse,\u201d 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?<\/a><\/p>\n

But Salesforce hasn\u2019t been without its rejoinders to this narrative\u2014even if you set aside Agentforce. Recently, for instance, it announced \u201cHeadless 360<\/a>,\u201d an initiative aimed at inserting \u201cmore than 100 new tools\u201d into its consumer relationship management system with the goal of giving the user the ability to ignore the software\u2019s graphical interface altogether, and simply let the AI do all the work\u2014even easier than vibe coding, or at least that\u2019s the theory.<\/p>\n

But Agentforce was announced all the way back in 2024<\/a>, and has had some time to cook. Unfortunately, ads like this one<\/a>, in which Agentforce appears to have revolutionized service at University of Chicago Medicine, are sharpening the contrast between what was promised and what\u2019s been delivered so far.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

According to Bloomberg, those functions are still unavailable. \u201cPatients who call the hospital system today are greeted with keypad-selection menus and routed to human schedulers,\u201d Bloomberg says. The chatbot in the ad is \u201cstill being tested and not visible to most web visitors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anonymous sources apparently told Bloomberg the delay of the features is \u201cdue to product glitches and difficulty getting sign-offs from internal compliance departments.\u201d<\/p>\n

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff reportedly said the materials being scrutinized are future-oriented marketing. \u201cWhatever technology we have ever marketed, we have always delivered,\u201d he told Bloomberg.<\/p>\n

And in Benioff\u2019s defense, Bloomberg notes that appliance and personal tech brand SharkNinja Inc.\u00a0claims that using Agentforce has resulted in a 20% drop in \u201cservice phone calls.\u201d Apparently Agentforce agents really are good at troubleshooting people\u2019s gadget problems.<\/p>\n

Also, Salesforce is far from the only company that created marketing materials featuring AI-related promises that have noticeably not materialized. Apple most famously released an ad in 2024 for a new, personalized version of Siri<\/a> with capabilities that save actor Bella Ramsey from awkwardness at a party. Apple settled a false advertising lawsuit over the ad<\/a> without admitting fault.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s not just University of Chicago Medicine. A stage presentation by Williams-Sonoma last year showcased Agentforce-powered phone features\u2014allowing a customer to easily buy something they saw online via a slick synthetic phone operator. Bloomberg notes that \u201cabout half a year\u00a0after that presentation, Williams-Sonoma\u2019s phone line isn\u2019t actually using Agentforce.\u201d Williams-Sonoma Chief Technology & Digital Officer Sameer Hassan tells Bloomberg the stage presentation showed off \u201cpossibilities,\u201d and that the company hopes to roll out the features by the holidays.<\/p>\n

In a video made in conjunction with Finnair<\/a>, the Finnish airline, we see a customers interact with what are meant to be an Agentforce agents. The interactions depicted would be a dream come true if they were real. For instance:<\/p>\n

Customer: My flight was canceled due to weather. Can you help me get rebooked?<\/p>\n

Agent: Absolutely! I\u2019ve found the next available flight at 2:00 PM, arriving at your destination at 3:15 PM. Would you like me to confirm this for you?<\/p>\n

It knows the user and their itinerary, instead of asking a million tedious questions, and it simply solves the problem for them.<\/p>\n

But Finnair\u2019s website<\/a> (which refers to its chatbot as a proprietary character named \u201cSisu\u201d) has an FAQ about its agent, which clarifies that actually, no, the agent can\u2019t change your booking for you. It can \u201cexplain how to make changes and guide you to the right place, Manage Booking or a customer service agent,\u201d\u00a0 but the ability to make changes to your booking is \u201cplanned for future development.\u201d<\/p>\n

Salesforce\u2019s stock price, by the way, is in bad shape. It lost almost 21%<\/a> of its value in 2025. Last month it was down an additional 35%<\/a>, but it\u2019s climbed back a bit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new report from Bloomberg raises some uncomfortable questions about Salesforce\u2019s marketing around Agentforce, the company\u2019s AI platform.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":50697,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[179,7493,2940,404,2942,30075],"class_list":["post-50696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-agentic-ai","tag-agentic-ai","tag-agentic-artificial-intelligence","tag-marc-benioff","tag-saas","tag-salesforce","tag-vaporware"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}