Salesforce’s Next Move? Taking ITSM From ServiceNow

This week on Funnel Frontier: Salesforce is gunning for ITSM turf. And it’s smuggling the whole thing in through Slack.

This week:

• Salesforce’s next move? Taking ITSM from ServiceNow
• Salesforce cuts 4,000 reps, ServiceNow is still fully staffed and flexing

Stat of the Week

Studies show that 57% of businesses report increased sales revenue as a key benefit of CRM software. (CRM.org) 

Salesforce’s next move? Taking ITSM from ServiceNow

Marc Benioff just made things interesting:

Salesforce is entering the IT Service Management (ITSM) market. And it’s building the whole thing on Slack.

Speaking on The Logan Bartlett Show, Benioff confirmed the launch will drop at Dreamforce 2025. His pitch?

“ServiceNow is in 9,000 companies. Slack is in a million.”

Salesforce thinks it can democratize IT workflows the same way it’s trying to agentify sales and service. All in one interface. All on your phone.

Oh—and if that sounds like revenge for ServiceNow's CRM moves this year? You’re not wrong.

Why ITSM matters to CX now

Here’s the crossover:

AI agents are now automating both customer and IT tickets. And they’re doing it across shared systems, pulling from the same data, built by the same teams.

That means IT and CX are merging, fast. Just ask Nate Brown, Head of Education at Metric Sherpa:

“The wall between ITSM and CX is already coming down. This just accelerates the inevitable.”

Slack becomes the shared surface where customer ops and internal ops collide. Agents will run both.

Agentic branding spree

Benioff also teased more Dreamforce drops:

• Sales Cloud → Agentic Sales
• Service Cloud → Agentic Service
• Marketing Cloud → (you guessed it)

Plus, real case studies. He says Agentforce helped Salesforce cut its service team from 9,000 to 5,000 (we’ll get to that in a minute!), and 12 Fortune 100 companies will share how they’re doing the same.

And all those acquisitions?

Waii, Bluebirds, Regrello—they weren’t random. Each one plugs into this Agentic Enterprise story:

• Waii → makes enterprise data talk
• Bluebirds → automates prospecting
• Regrello → connects ops and supply chain to Agentforce

Slack is the layer. AI agents are the muscle. ITSM is the next wedge.

Dreamforce 2025 is shaping up to be a full-stack land grab. And ServiceNow just got a new neighbor with a very big front yard.

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Salesforce cuts 4,000 reps, ServiceNow is still fully staffed and flexing

Remember when we said Benioff slashed 4,000 support reps? Yeah, we promised receipts. Here they are.

On The Logan Bartlett Show, Benioff said Agentforce now handles 1.5M customer queries, matching humans in volume and CSAT. That, he claims, let him shrink support.

“I was able to rebalance my headcount on my support. I’ve reduced it from 9,000 heads to about 5,000, because I need less heads,” he said.

Salesforce later clarified: hundreds were reassigned to sales and services roles. Still, the message was clear—AI is replacing humans.

And that’s when things blew up.

Backlash, doubt, and one spicy LinkedIn post

One former Salesforce employee called Benioff’s claim an outright lie in a LinkedIn post, saying Agentforce “isn’t ready for primetime.”

Others pointed to Klarna, which famously overhyped its AI support, then had to bring in folks from marketing and legal to answer phones.

Even analysts pressed Benioff on the earnings call. His response?

“It’s hard for everybody to get their head around what’s possible.”

Meanwhile, at ServiceNow…

They’ve automated 75% of support cases, too, but haven’t cut a single head. Instead, they gave reps smarter tools, sped up onboarding, and improved CSAT and retention.

Amit Zavery, President, CPO, & COO of ServiceNow, shared the news in a discussion on Bloomberg Live.

So who’s got it right?

Depends on who you ask.

Benioff says fear is holding rivals back, while Zavery claims you don’t need cuts to see ROI. 

Gartner predicts that half of the companies won’t cut a single rep by 2027. And customers? 81% still want a human on the other end of the line.

Galactic Gourmet

CRM blips from around the web

Salesloft to Suspend Drift Chatbot after Massive Breaches. After attackers exploited OAuth tokens to access sensitive customer data—including at Cloudflare and Zscaler—Salesloft will take its Drift chatbot offline. The breach highlights growing risks in AI-agent integrations and token security.

HubSpot Drops 200+ Product Updates at Inbound 2025. HubSpot just rolled out a Data Hub, AI-powered CRM cleanup tools, and over 15 new Breeze Agents for sales, service, and marketing. It’s a full-stack push to build hybrid human-AI teams—with assistants that actually understand your pipeline.

Zoho expands SMB toolkit after 40% YoY customer growth. Zoho rolled out updates to six key apps—Bigin, Commerce, Solo, Contracts, Start, and Notebook—adding AI agents, QuickBooks/Shopify integrations, and new tools for solopreneurs and e-tailers. It’s a full-court press on SMB productivity and growth.

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