ByLuz Pena
Wednesday, September 16, 2026 4:41AM
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff interviewed Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei at Dreamforce, discussing the pace of AI development and its economic effects.
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) –More than 43,000 people gathered in San Francisco as Dreamforce, Salesforce’s annual conference, opened with discussions about the rapid growth of artificial intelligence, its economic impact and concerns about safety.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff interviewed Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who discussed the pace of AI development and its effects on the economy.
“What is your biggest shock about where we are now?” Benioff asked.
“It’s been the pace of the progress, not just of the technology but of the economic side of it,” Amodei responded.
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Amodei, who has increasingly spoken publicly about the speed of AI development and the need to reduce risks, called for greater transparency and stronger safety practices across the industry.
“Let’s look at our own record, right? We may not have had this big high profile incident, but I’m sure we’re not perfect. Let’s look at everything and we can always be better. Let’s make our practices better. Let’s recommit to transparency. Let’s invest more in safety. Then let’s organize the rest of the industry and say, what can we do to set standards for,” Amodei said.
Nvidia, which has been identified as a key driver of the AI boom, also addressed AI safety during the conference.
“If we’re not confident about the safety of the products. Like all companies like you and I, any, all the companies here. If you build a product or service and you’re not confident in its functionality, capability or safety, then don’t release it. And so that’s a very obvious thing to do,” Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said.
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Speaking before about 12,000 people during a keynote address, Huang also said there was no need for new laws to regulate AI. We asked Benioff about his opinion.
“We’re in a very fluid moment now. And I think that as we kind of start to get our head around what are the capability of the models who can do what. And also obviously there’s political orientations for everybody’s where everybody is. So, I think that we already have regulations around the models,” Benioff said.
OpenAI and Anthropic are expected to launch initial public offerings in the coming months, a development Benioff described as another gold rush for San Francisco.
Benioff said the companies are projected to inject more than $10 billion into the local economy.
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