AIforce: Salesforce Unveils Layer Connecting People and AI Agents

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff introduced AIforce during the Dreamforce keynote, a layer that connects people and AI agents to Salesforce data and workflows via Anthropic's Claude.

Benioff joined CEOs from NVIDIA, Siemens, and Anthropic on stage to discuss how AI can reshape corporate work and industrial production. The four companies appear on R&D World's list of the 100 most innovative companies of 2026.

NVIDIA spent $18.5 billion on R&D in its fiscal year ended January 25, 2026, more than Merck's $15.8 billion or Eli Lilly's $13.3 billion in 2025. Alphabet and Meta together spent $118.5 billion in 2025; Salesforce's R&D expense was about $6 billion in its fiscal year ended January 31, 2026.