Impact Economy Report
Impact Economy Report
Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18
Methodology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
IDC’s EIM and the Benefits of AI-Powered Cloud . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19
Appendix 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Key Definitions in Support of Figures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Exchange Rates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
The Survey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
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Executive Summary
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57% cloud solutions will generate $948 billion in new revenues for
customers by 2028, which is in line with the overall growth in AI
will disrupt
company culture and AI-powered applications.
and organization
• IDC conducted a survey (see the Methodology section) concerning
the adoption of cloud-based AI products. Respondents said that
the top three areas to leverage AI are in IT (62%), customer service
and support (51%), and finance and administration (48%).
• IDC has estimated that the adoption of AI-powered cloud solutions will
result in an additional 4.7 million direct jobs being created between
2022 and 2028 within the expanded Salesforce ecosystem.
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Cloud Computing
Is the Foundation for AI
FIGURE 1
Most Software Today Is on the Cloud, and Businesses are Benefiting from It
$691B
$561B
$454B
$363B
$285B
$226B
$147B $163B $184B $206B $229B $253B
For an accessible version of the data in this figure, see Figure 1 Supplemental Data in the Appendix.
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Why the focus on cloud computing? Because cloud applications are critical to
digital transformation and, going forward, the application of AI. Cloud computing
has enabled the digital transformation of business by allowing companies to
implement software applications, shift business processes, launch new products,
and understand the customer more efficiently and effectively.
Not so long ago, companies would take a couple of years to implement a new
application and then a couple of more years to fine-tune it before they started
to see its full value. Today, with new business models and processes, new
applications, update cycles, and the instantaneous need to see value from those
applications have resulted in a stream of continuous digital transformation,
and companies are struggling to retain relevancy in their markets.
Going forward, cloud computing will be the foundation for implementation and
the value that comes from AI applications. AI by its nature requires significant
resources when it is used at full capacity, but when paired with cloud, it allows
for more efficient use of resources. Being cloud based allows for the optimal use
of compute resources at a time when it makes sense and for a cost that is limited
to the actual use. Hence, companies are able to build their AI future on
the foundation of the cloud.
Specifically, IDC has found that the use and adoption of AI applications are
increasing as companies are spending on cloud-based AI software (see Figure 2).
IDC predicts the worldwide AI software market will grow from $372.8 billion
in 2022 to $943.7 billion in 2027 at a CAGR of 20.4%. This projected growth of
the global AI software market reflects the expanding recognition and adoption
of AI across industries, along with the perceived value that companies believe it
can have in their business.
FIGURE 2
Cloud Computing Is the Foundation for the Adoption and Application of AI
$994B
$846B
$716B
$602B
$505B
$419B
$331B
$368B $392B $407B $419B $432B $444B $457B
Source: Worldwide Artificial Intelligence Software Forecast, 2023–2027, IDC Doc #US50027023
For an accessible version of the data in this figure, see Figure 2 Supplemental Data in the Appendix.
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What is the business value that companies expect from adopting AI-powered
cloud solutions? The largest expected outcome is to be able to continuously
digitally transform. More and more business is done online every day and,
to maintain parity with competitors in this digital realm, companies need to be
willing to adopt new technologies that will support ongoing digital transformation
as a key part of their strategy.
Figure 3 shows that, of the companies with a digital transformation strategy, 94%
of them view AI-powered cloud solutions as foundational to effectively
and continuously digitally transform.
FIGURE 3
AI Is the Foundation to Maintaining Relevancy During the Digital Revolution
How important are AI-powered cloud solutions to your formal digital transformation strategy?
(Percentage of respondents)
Not sure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3%
Base: all respondents; n = 553; Source: Salesforce.com Economic Impact Survey, IDC, July, 2023
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Benefits of Salesforce AI
to the Economy
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FIGURE 4
Adoption and Application of AI Is Becoming Table Stakes
To the best of your knowledge, how much does your organization use the following technologies?
(Percentage of respondents)
70%
62%
Note: The percentage represents the sum of respondents that selected “Heavy or Moderate Use”
of AI-Powered CRM Solutions andEnterprise AI Software Platforms.
n = 553; Source: Salesforce.com Economic Impact Survey, IDC, July, 2023
Obviously, companies are adopting AI, but what is the economic benefit, and what
specifically is the economic benefit from a Salesforce AI-powered cloud solution?
IDC calculated that the use of Salesforce AI-powered cloud solutions generated
$312 billion in the customer base in 2022 and expects that this will triple in size by
2028 to $948 billion with a CAGR of 20.3% (see Figure 5, next page). Considering
just the new revenues created since 2022, Salesforce AI-powered solutions will
add $2.02 trillion in revenue globally.
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FIGURE 5
Revenue Impact of Salesforce AI-Powered Cloud Solutions 2022–2028
$691B
$570B
$469B
$375B
$312B
Note: for further breakdown of revenue, please refer to the methodology section;
Source: IDC Salesforce AI-Powered Cloud Solutions Economic Impact Model, July 2023
The primary drivers of this revenue growth are customer-facing activities, as well
as the benefits AI will bring to companies’ internal functions and how they conduct
business with partners. Figure 6 (see next page) shows the primary benefits that
companies experience from AI-powered cloud solutions, with the largest benefit
coming from employees and customers touch points (at 62%), such as customer
service calls. The second largest benefit is improved overall customer experience
(61%), which leads to increased revenue (50%) and lowered costs to acquire, retain,
or service customers (47%).
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FIGURE 6
Clear Customer and Organizational Benefits from AI-Powered Cloud Solutions
Has your organization experienced any of the following benefits from AI-powered cloud
solutions focused on customer-facing activities?
(Percentage of respondents)
Improved customer-facing
employee productivity
(output per employee) . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62%
Improved customer
experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
61%
Base: Respondents indicated their organization’s investment in AI-powered cloud solutions is targeted to the customer-facing activities;
n = 517; Source: Salesforce Economic Impact Survey, IDC, July 2023
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Broader Impacts
and Opportunities
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technological change, there will be changes in the types of jobs available and the
work that people do. But we also believe that even with those potential changes,
there will still be positive job growth.
IDC estimates that the adoption of Salesforce AI-powered cloud solutions will
result in the creation of an additional 4.7 million direct jobs between 2022 and
2028 (see Figure 7). Additionally, it will indirectly impact roles not directly tied to
technology but that come about as a result of the changes AI brings to different
career fields. IDC estimates that adoption of Salesforce AI-powered cloud
solutions will create 7 million indirect or induced jobs between 2022 and 2028.
This is a net gain of 11.6 million jobs between 2022 and 2028.
FIGURE 7
Employment Impacts of Salesforce AI-Powered Cloud Solutions 2022–2028
18M
13M 16M
11M
11M 8M 10M
9M
6M 8M 7M
6M
4M 5M 7M
5M 6M
2M 3M 3M 4M
*Note: IDC defines “direct” jobs as those jobs in Salesforce and its ecosystem. “Indirect” jobs are those generated
by the use of Salesforce AI-powered cloud solutions and its ecosystem’s cloud services.“Induced” jobs are those generated
by the spending on local goods and services.
Source: IDC’s Salesforce AI-Powered Cloud Solutions Economic Impact Model, July 2023
For an accessible version of the data in this figure, see Figure 7 Supplemental Data in the Appendix.
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What can we expect from the dawning of the AI revolution? Companies have
already been hiring to maintain relevance in the AI space. Specifically for AI jobs,
50% of companies have hired data engineers over the last 12 months, 43%
have hired business analysts, and 41% have hired AI solution architects
(see Figure 8, next page). Given that there aren’t necessarily that many people
with the education and skills to fulfill these and similar roles, it foreshadows a race
for limited talent in these areas.
Additionally, 82% of companies expect that AI will change the nature of the
workforce, including whether there are more freelance employees and fewer direct
employees, how and where employees work, and even how employees reskill.
Not only are the roles changing, but also the nature of the workforce is changing,
similar to what was seen during previous technology revolutions.
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FIGURE 8
New Key Roles that Are Needed in an AI-Driven World
Which AI roles have you hired in the past 12 months?
(Percentage of respondents)
AI ethicist. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21%
Base: all respondents; n = 553; Source: Salesforce.com Economic Impact Survey, IDC, July, 2023
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going forward, this will be a crucial role as companies struggle to figure out how to
employ AI in a way that is ethical and can be trusted. Additional key roles that
companies are focusing their hiring efforts on include AI solutions architects (41%),
ML engineers (38%), and data scientists (38%).
FIGURE 9
New Key Roles that Are Needed in an AI-Driven World
Which AI roles do you plan to hire in the next 12 months?
(Percentage of respondents)
AI ethicist. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43%
Note: ModelOps/MLOps is the discipline of operationalizing models in production, scaling them, and so on;
n = 553; Source: Salesforce.com Economic Impact Survey, IDC, July, 2023
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As shown in Figure 10, AI will help employees do their jobs better through better
tooling and better data, which will allow for better decision making. Additional key
expected impacts for employees over the next 12 months are more productivity
(43%), a reduction in repetitive tasks (38%), and improved job satisfaction (40%).
FIGURE 10
Positive Employee Impacts Are Part of the AI-Powered Cloud Solution Shift
How has AI-powered cloud solutions impacted your organization in the past 12 months
and how will it impact your organizations in next 12 months?
(Percentage of respondents)
45%
Helped employees do their jobs better. . . . . . .
44%
41%
Increased workforce AI skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
41%
Made employees more productive/get 39%
more done in less time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43%
Reduce the need for technical skills 23%
for entry-level jobs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27%
42%
Reduced repetitive routine tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
38%
27%
Created new knowledge-based jobs. . . . . . . . . .
33%
37%
Improved job satisfaction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
40%
Base: all respondents; n = 553; Source: Salesforce.com Economic Impact Survey, IDC, July, 2023
For an accessible version of the data in this figure, see Figure 10 Supplemental Data in the Appendix.
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Conclusion
It is also clear that the speed and magnitude of AI transformation will result
in challenges, from the shift in job functions, to the need for talent, all the way
to rethinking what business models will look like moving forward. These changes
and more will be challenges that Salesforce, its partners, and its customers will
have to overcome.
With the recent launch of Einstein AI, Einstein Copilot, and other AI applications,
Salesforce seems to be successfully facing the initial challenges. Integrating
AI-powered solutions, data flows, business process changes, and more will be
ongoing challenges for Salesforce, its partners, and customers. Key to that success
will be the continued evolution of Salesforce’s trusted and responsible AI, as this
will support accelerated AI adoption in a trusted way.
The AI revolution is truly a revolution on scale with the industrial revolution in size
and impact, and Salesforce currently has a significant stake in what this looks like
for CRM systems.
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Methodology
IDC then computes the number of jobs supported by those revenues in the current
year using research on GDP, gross output, and disposable income per worker.
IDC uses standard growth rate ratios between revenue growth and job growth
to quantify job creation in future years. Typically, if revenues grow x% a year,
commensurate job growth will be 0.5–0.7 times x. In other words, new jobs grow
more slowly than revenues.
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To compute the Salesforce-specific share of revenues and jobs created by the use
of cloud computing, IDC relies on unpublished estimates of Salesforce’s future
revenues as a percentage of the revenues of all cloud vendors and IDC estimates
of additional cloud services delivered by the ecosystem.
Note that the ecosystem may include companies that are not formal business
partners of Salesforce but that nevertheless sell products or services associated
with the Salesforce implementations.
• System software
• Data services
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The aggregate of the revenue components calculated in this way becomes the
estimate of ecosystem revenues. For simplicity, IDC aggregates some categories.
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Appendix 1
Key Definitions
in Support of Figures
• Direct Impacts (direct jobs and direct revenues) are those created in the
Salesforce and ecosystem base.
• Indirect Impacts (indirect jobs and revenues) are those created in the supply
chain and in the customer base from the use of cloud computing.
• Induced Impacts (induced jobs and revenues) are the effects induced from
the increase in SFDC and its ecosystem revenue. They refer to the impact due
to economic stimulus coming from increased households’ income. People will
spend their wages in the economy, thus generating additional revenues.
• Net gain in jobs is the difference from year-end 2022 to year-end 2028.
For revenue, it is the aggregate difference from each year to 2028.
• Business revenues are those created in the Salesforce customer base from the
use of cloud computing. They do not equate directly to GDP.
Revenues from recent Salesforce acquisitions have been folded into the historical
view of Salesforce revenues as well as forecasts.
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TABLE 1
Breakdown of Worldwide Business Revenues Generated from the Use
of SFDC AI-Powered Cloud Solutions
Direct
40B 48B 59B 73B 88B 106B 123B
impacts
Indirect
253B 302B 380B 460B 557B 675B 761B
impacts
Induced
20B 24B 30B 37B 46B 55B 65B
impacts
The direct jobs created by the use of AI-powered cloud applications are from
spending in the region/country studied. The assumption is that those jobs will
also be located in that region/country, but that may not always be the case.
Exchange Rates
All IDC modeling inputs and forecasts are in constant dollars at the average annual
exchange rates of 2022.
The Survey
To support the assumptions driving the model and to present current real-world
information about the Salesforce economy, IDC conducted an online survey in
July 2023 of 533 decision makers familiar with their organizations’ AI-powered
cloud deployments across Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Japan,
New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
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Public Cloud
$226B $285B $363B $454B $561B $691B
Services (Own IP)
On-premise/
$368B $392B $407B $419B $432B $444B $457B
Others
Public Cloud
$331B $419B $505B $602B $716B $846B $994B
Services (Own IP)
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Direct jobs 2M 3M 3M 4M 5M 6M 7M
Indirect/
4M 5M 6M 7M 8M 10M 11M
induced jobs
Source: IDC Salesforce AI-Powered Cloud Solutions Economic Impact Model, July 2023
Past 12 Next 12
months months
Made employees more productive/get more done in less time 39% 43%
Reduce the need for technical skills for entry level jobs 23% 27%
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Alan Webber is Program Vice President for Digital Strategy and Customer Experience.
In this role, Alan leads IDC’s Customer Experience research program as well as
supporting IDC’s Chief Marketing Officer research efforts. Specific areas of research
interest for Alan are the impact that technology changes have on how business and
customers engage and interact, the digital transformation of the customer experience,
and the impact of algorithms and analytics.
Dave Schubmehl
Research Vice President,
Conversational Artificial Intelligence and
Intelligent Knowledge Discovery, IDC
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Carla La Croce
Senior Research Analyst,
Data and Analytics
Carla La Croce is a senior research analyst for IDC’s European Data and Analytics
team. She develops qualitative and quantitative research on IT strategies for EMEA
vertical markets, with direct involvement in IDC Spending Guides (big Data and
analytics, artificial Intelligence, robotics) and is part of the Intelligent Business
Execution (IBE) practice. She also leads the Macroeconomic Center of Excellence,
where she works on economic impact analysis and European recovery plans,
and manages a database of macroeconomic indicators (such as GDP and inflation).
La Croce also supports IDC’s consulting and forecast activities in the region.
Ritu Jyoti
Group Vice President,
Worldwide Artificial Intelligence and Automation
Research Practice, Global AI Research Lead, IDC
Ritu Jyoti is Group Vice President, covering worldwide AI and automation research
with IDC’s Software Market Research and Advisory practice. Ritu is responsible for
leading the development of IDC’s thought leadership for AI research and managing
the research team. Her research focuses on the state of enterprise AI efforts and
global market trends for rapidly evolving AI and ML innovations and ecosystem.
She also leads insightful research that addresses the needs of AI technology
vendors and provides actionable guidance on how to crisply articulate their value
proposition, differentiate, and thrive in the digital era.
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