Salesforce: CIOs closer to the bridge than ever due to agentic AI

Salesforce research into how CIOs are using agentic AI has found the technology to be making their roles more strategic than ever within their businesses.

The customer relationship management (CRM) supplier conducted an online survey with market research firm NewtonX among 200 CIOs from 24 countries in October 2025. This was the second year of the survey.

It found that AI implementation has increased by 282% since 2024, from 11% to 42%, and the AI budget has nearly doubled. The CIOs surveyed said they were dedicating 30% of their AI budget to agentic AI specifically, so most is going to other forms of AI, such as generative AI and traditional machine learning AI. Nevertheless, 96% of CIOs said their company either currently uses or plans to use agentic AI in the next two years.

This increased use of AI seems to have boosted the self-esteem of CIOs. Three-quarters said they feel more confident in their role now than they did a year ago, and 97% said they know more about AI now than they did a year ago.

The CIOs – as a direct consequence of agentic AI, according to the researchers – reported working most closely with CEOs over other C-suite executives as their role has increased in scope and importance. This has caused 94% of them to expand their skillsets, and 57% have deliberately honed their narrative-building and storytelling skills to prepare themselves for agentic AI.

Customer service has emerged as a big focus for CIOs because of the advent and development of agentic AI, according to the research, with 65% of those surveyed working more closely with their customer service organisation than all other groups.

A UK retail CIO surveyed said: “There has been more emphasis [in my role] on coaching and directing the business on the potential and limitations of AI. There is a great deal of hype, which is greater than several previous emerging technologies that need grounding in realistic applications within our business. A lot more education is needed to adopt and get the most out of it, or costs escalate far quicker without adding value. There is an even greater need to ensure strategic business alignment across functions to get the most out of the data and insight potential.”

CIOs are turning AI ambition into action and scaling agentic AI in real, measurable ways. At Salesforce, we start by learning what works inside our own business, then share those lessons with our customers

Salesforce’s own CIO, Daniel Shmitt, said, in support of the research: “CIOs are turning AI ambition into action and scaling agentic AI in real, measurable ways. At Salesforce, we start by learning what works inside our own business, then share those lessons with our customers. Embedding AI into the flow of work and building trust into every step helps everyone move faster and with more confidence.”

Another CIO, Chris Campbell, of DeVry University, which is an Illinois-based US university that offers online and campus-based degree courses, said: “Our shift from on-premise systems to trusted SaaS [software-as-a-service] platforms positioned us to move quickly on agentic AI. By embedding Salesforce’s AI agents directly into the flow of academic advising and student support, we’re not just modernising infrastructure, we’re improving outcomes and saving more than 500 hours of colleague time every year.”

“Our shift from on-premise systems to trusted SaaS platforms positioned us to move quickly on agentic AI. By embedding Salesforce’s AI agents directly into the flow of academic advising and student support, we’re not just modernising infrastructure, we’re improving outcomes and saving more than 500 hours of colleague time every year”

Chris Campbell, DeVry University

And Alex Waddell, CIO at Adobe Population Health, which offers software and information care management services to clients in the US healthcare industry, said: “Salesforce’s CIO research shows the shift from AI experimentation to business impact, and we’re living that. By bringing Agentforce into the flow of clinical work, we’ve saved more than $1m in time annually and given thousands of hours back to care teams.”

On a more downbeat note, the research highlighted concerns about data security and privacy. It found that only 35% of CIOs say they are working more closely with chief data officers as a result of agentic AI, and only 14% of their IT budget is dedicated to data security. It also revealed that only 23% of CIOs are “completely confident” they are investing in AI with built-in data governance.

Asked if the findings and analysis were exaggerating the importance of customer service in the general field of business applications, which includes enterprise resource planning (ERP) and supply chain management (SCM), as well as CRM, the CIOs stressed that customer experience (CX) is a critical area for agentic AI use, while it also applies more holistically.

DeVry University’s Campbell said: “I think customer service is a natural place. It’s a high labour model and none of us have enough humans to provide the great care that’s really required, so things get left on the ground. So the idea of extending that into a digital workforce that can extend that around the clock and pick up those dropped leads or cries for help are natural use cases.”

Adobe Population Health’s Waddell said: “While we’re looking at it as more of an internal support mechanism rather than as externally facing, we should not constrain it. I’m excited to see how it goes. We don’t know where it will end up, and I’m excited to see where it will go and where we can adopt it.”

Salesforce’s Shmitt added: “I think it’s going to be incredibly transformative in ways that we probably haven’t even imagined yet. I think the key thing is going to be agent-to-agent transactions, and as the technology develops, and as we get better at it, and it becomes commonplace to have an agent from one system talk to an agent in another system, I think the sky’s the limit on what we can do.”