Distribution always wins, and here's another proof point: SFDC's AgentForce grew from 0 to $100M ARR in 8 months = faster than Lovable, Cursor, Wiz. It's great to see innovation from the incumbents, as well as the disruptors! While vibe coding apps are making headlines, Marc Benioff 'quietly' revealed: "AgentForce reached more than $100,000,000 in AOV. It's much faster than any product in our history, and we're not even fully deployed in all geographies, currencies, or languages." To put things in the perspective… SFDC has 150,000 customers AgentForce grew to $100M in 8 months It's 'only' adopted by 8,000 SFDC customers (5.3%) So, even if they just expand to SFDC's current customer base, AgentForce alone has a potential to be a ~$2B ARR product! ------- The takeaway? In the last 2 years, VCs bet (at least) $221.5M on AI SDRs alone. The broader category of AI Agents is obviously much bigger, with at least +150 solutions out there. A lot of them may be an objectively better product than AgentForce, but... The best product doesn’t always win. But a good product with great distribution? Almost always does.
Christopher Rack
10mo
With the penetration has in the enterprise, they are going to win deals simply because they have been onboarded and through security review at a lot of companies. Also there is the "no one gets fired for choosing SFDC" factor at play here too. SFDC is biiiig, but they are also fairly nimble and I think the metrics above showcase that they will end up in a very solid place in the "great AI wars" of 2025 - 2030.
Blake Strozyk
10mo
Market movement also helps here and is the primary driver with distribution 2nd. They could redeploy a revamped Pardot and struggle to be anywhere near that. Great distribution + hot market + semi-capable product = this result
Ishan Manchanda
10mo
I think its a very smart play by Salesforce here. They don’t just have distribution for product adoption, but still a huge chunk are loyal customers who would not just adapt, but help improve the product and also retain in long contracts.
Martin Spanik
10mo
This is fascinating and I like the direction, but I take both your post Andrew, and Salesforce's statement with a large pinch of salt. Marc said $100M in Annual Order Value, which is not the same as Annual Recurring Revenue. ARR in this case could be as low as 0.3x of the $100M quoted. Marc also said 8,000 deals, not 8,000 customers. There is certainly something here, but claiming it's growing faster than Cursor, Wiz, or Lovable is frankly nonsense.
Do you think the strength of Salesforce’s distribution is as much about trust and credibility as it is about sheer reach Andrew?