Kevin Boyle, CEO, Gearset, says Salesforce’s latest financial results suggest the software-as-a-service market is evolving rather than declining, with AI agents creating new opportunities for growth while placing greater emphasis on governance, testing and disciplined software delivery.
Despite the talk that AI and agents are threatening to undermine the value of software-as-a-service, Salesforce’s latest earnings show that the market isn’t dying, it’s evolving. Agentforce has given revenues a new lease of life with a 13% uplift on last year while also signaling a shift towards consumption-based pricing that’s reshaping what SaaS looks like. CEO Marc Benioff has sent a clear message: effective use of AI and agents is going to be the foundation of success for its customers from here on out. Salesforce is proof that the companies willing to evolve are the ones that will succeed.
Software teams are already deriving massive value from AI’s capabilities. Gearset’s latest DevOps research found that 82% of Salesforce teams now trust AI when building software. Agentic maturity is at the very earliest stages but it’s safe to assume that trust will grow in a similar way as developers find out how best to fit agents into their workflows.
The more work organizations delegate to agents, the more important testing and governance becomes. Agents can accelerate delivery but only mature processes ensure that increased output translates into the business value SaaS companies need to survive.
CIOs can’t afford to rush implementing agents to produce and deploy software. The greatest opportunity is for enterprises that employ strict guardrails and processes to turn increased output into results that work for their business.
Quality assurance is a must
As developers feel the pressure to increase the speed and frequency of agentic deployments, the level of risk also increases. This risk of bugs increases further when AI-based coding tools are used as a part of the software development process.
Using AI-generated code as an example, dev teams need to have an awareness of what can happen if reliance on vibe coding and agentic deployment is used as a substitute for engineering intellect. If changes agents make can’t be easily read and understood by the real people owning projects then technical debt will amass at speed.
Agents’ outputs aren’t foolproof. They need to be reviewed by someone with a full contextual understanding of how the organization operates to ensure inaccuracies and hallucinations don’t hold up deployments if they pass initial checks but fail at runtime.
All this means that quality assurance is now more important than ever for developers working with platforms where agents are involved. Speed doesn’t forego the need for process, it puts proper testing, validation and deployment processes front and centre. The key to producing consistently high-quality and meaningful work with agents is nailing the basics to keep these risks at arm’s length.
Maintaining discipline
Any team can move faster with agents taking work off developers’ hands, giving them more time to focus on strategy and discipline. The question is no longer whether agents can generate more output. It’s whether organizations have the processes, testing frameworks and governance needed to turn that output into working software that delivers value in production.
As agents increase the volume of changes software teams can produce, they also increase the importance of having clear standards and guardrails. Businesses that treat AI as a shortcut around established engineering practices will struggle to realize lasting value. Those that embed agents into repeatable workflows, with robust testing and oversight, will be far better placed to translate increased output into meaningful business outcomes.
We’ve seen this play out long before the rise of AI and agents. Our customers frequently find that more structured deployment processes accelerate deployments and reduce failures. With agents, speed and control remain the bedrock of sustainable improvements in software delivery.
Building a culture of iterative improvement
Salesforce’s results are a reminder that the real competitive advantage in the agentic era won’t come from access to tools but from how well organizations deploy them. This starts at the top. The CIO’s role in the agentic era is principally to make sure the work agents do is producing the right business outcomes, with a clear strategy that governs how agents are used across the organization, not just in individual workflows.
Teams will get the most out of the agentic era by treating agents as virtual teammates with specific, well-defined roles. Agents are capable of making decisions related to low-impact, repetitive work so that admins can focus on strategy. Used correctly, this should amplify the most valuable work of the team rather than replacing it. Juniors entering software teams will spend less time on the nuts and bolts of conducting tests and configuration changes and more time learning how to build systems and think critically about how software processes can be improved.
Patience is needed to derive value from this new way of working. There are skeptics about the efficacy of new systems in every software team and it takes time to demonstrate positive results of using new technologies so everyone recognizes how they create value for the business. A culture that allows agents to make mistakes with human review allows for iterative improvement that delivers value over time.
Software is here to stay
Salesforce’s growth and commitment to its new AI and agentic products is a signal that software as a service is evolving. Enterprises with a clear method for getting the most value from shipping software will shine under the new demands agents present. Enterprises can embrace this momentum by embedding simple, repeatable processes that mitigate risk into their software lifecycles.
