Salesforce's Investment in Anthropic May Be Worth Tens of Billions

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said that his company's investment in Anthropic was initially a backup plan after it couldn't invest in OpenAI due to Microsoft's close relationship with the AI firm. Benioff told host Alex Heath on an episode of the Sources Podcast that he wanted Salesforce to invest in OpenAI but was prevented from doing so because of the Microsoft partnership.

Microsoft holds around 27% of OpenAI and has rights to use its technology in its products, as well as selling access to OpenAI models through Azure. Benioff said this situation forced Salesforce to look elsewhere for an investment opportunity, which ultimately led them to Anthropic.

The investment has become a close business partnership between the two companies, with Anthropic's AI model Claude powering Salesforce's Slackbot and other new interfaces. Benioff believes that the bet could pay off handsomely and said that it may be worth 'tens of billions' of dollars.