Salesforce to Spend $300 Million on Anthropic Tokens for AI Coding Tools

Salesforce plans to spend $300 million on tokens from Anthropic in 2026, with most of the allocation directed toward coding tasks, according to Business Chief. CEO Marc Benioff said the investment supports the company’s continued integration of AI tools into software development workflows.

Benioff described the coding agents as tools that improve productivity rather than replace human engineers. Salesforce employs about 15,000 engineers who work alongside AI systems including Anthropic models, OpenAI Codex, and Cursor. The company reported that these tools have increased engineering productivity by more than 30 percent.

Salesforce halted new software engineering hires in 2025 after reporting significant efficiency gains from its AI systems. Instead, the company expanded hiring in sales to help customers understand AI products and their business applications.

The token purchase aligns with broader AI adoption across Salesforce products such as Slack and Agentforce. Benioff said the company is developing systems to route AI requests between models of different sizes based on task complexity, which could lower operating costs. Salesforce already holds a one percent stake in Anthropic valued at about $1 billion and reports that AI now accounts for up to half of its total workload.