Can AI really replace Salesforce and Workday? The truth behind the hype

You’ve probably seen the headlines. Klarna’s CEO made a pretty bold claim about ditching massive software providers like Salesforce and Workday and just… replacing them with AI.

If you’re managing a tech stack, that kind of news probably made your ears perk up. Is our expensive, sometimes clunky enterprise software finally on the chopping block?

Well, hold on a minute. The real story isn’t that simple. The conversation isn’t about a single, all-powerful AI taking over these platforms overnight. It’s about how a new wave of AI agents are completely changing how we use them. This isn’t a "rip and replace" story; it’s about a smarter way of working that’s already here.

Understanding the core question

To get what’s going on, you have to appreciate just how massive and embedded these platforms are. They aren’t just another app on your computer; for thousands of companies, they’re the central nervous system.

Salesforce: The CRM giant

At its heart, Salesforce is a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) platform, but calling it just a CRM is like calling a smartphone just a phone. It’s the system of record for pretty much every customer interaction, from the first marketing email they receive to a sales call and every support ticket that comes after. With its huge ecosystem of different "Clouds" and the AppExchange, it gets deeply woven into a company’s DNA. That’s exactly why trying to swap it out is such a monumental task.

A look at the Salesforce dashboard, which serves as the central nervous system for customer interactions.

Workday: The HR and finance backbone

Workday is the enterprise cloud platform that handles a company’s two most important things: its people and its money. It runs everything from payroll, benefits, and hiring to financial accounting and spending. Since it holds super sensitive and regulated data like employee records and financial reports, its reliability isn’t just a nice-to-have, it’s a legal and operational must.

The Klarna case: A real-world example

The headlines were exciting, but the reality is a little more down-to-earth. Klarna didn’t just snap its fingers and create a magical AI that replicates the decades of engineering behind Salesforce and Workday. The real story is a lot more practical and, frankly, more interesting.

According to a report from CX Today, Klarna’s move was less about replacing all their software and more about a strategic cleanup. They swapped some of their existing vendors for more modern, flexible tools (like using Deel for HR) and then layered AI over the top to make their operations smoother. Their goal wasn’t to get rid of software altogether but to escape the complexity and vendor lock-in that comes with the enterprise giants.

It’s a powerful strategy. Instead of trying to build a CRM from scratch, they’re using AI as an intelligent layer to connect different tools and automate workflows. It’s a shift toward a lighter, more efficient tech stack where AI makes everything simpler.

This approach, using AI as a smart layer on top of your existing tools, is what we’re all about. A tool like eesel AI doesn’t ask you to ditch the helpdesk or CRM you already know. Instead, it plugs directly into the software you use every day, like Zendesk, Slack, and Confluence, to automate tasks and bring all your knowledge together right where your teams are working. You get the simplification without the chaos of a full platform migration.

eesel AI connects with your existing tools, acting as a smart layer to simplify your tech stack.

Why a simple replacement isn’t the answer

While the idea of building one perfect, custom AI sounds great in theory, the real-world hurdles are huge. These platforms are more than just databases with a nice user interface; they’re incredibly intricate systems built to handle the messiness of the real world.

Workflows and compliance hurdles

Salesforce and Workday have decades of development behind them. They manage thousands of specific workflows, from generating the right tax forms and running payroll in different countries to handling complex sales commission structures. As many industry experts have pointed out, trying to recreate all of that from scratch internally is an engineering "black hole."

A generative AI can write code, sure, but it doesn’t have a built-in understanding of tricky accounting rules or international labor laws. Building that logic from the ground up is a massive project that pulls your focus away from what your business is actually supposed to be doing.

Data integrity challenges

Enterprise software has to be 100% right, 100% of the time. You can’t have your financial system "hallucinate" a quarterly earnings report or your CRM invent a sales contract. While Large Language Models (LLMs) are incredibly powerful, they work on probabilities. They generate responses based on patterns, not cold, hard logic.

This makes them amazing for helping out with tasks like summarizing meeting notes, drafting emails, or answering questions from a knowledge base. But it makes them a risky bet for the core engine of a system of record, where one tiny error can have serious financial or legal fallout.

The hidden costs of a custom approach

Even if you use AI to help write the code, building a custom enterprise platform is a massive, ongoing expense. You need dedicated teams for design, development, security, compliance, and constant upkeep. For most companies, that’s just not a good use of resources. Your best engineers should be building your product, not a second-rate version of a CRM.

This is where a self-serve platform like eesel AI offers a much smarter way forward. Instead of a multi-year, multi-million dollar project, you can connect your tools and be up and running in minutes. eesel AI works with your existing systems, bringing AI power to your workflows without the cost, risk, and headache of a massive internal build.

The better answer: How AI agents supercharge existing tools

So, the conversation is shifting from replacement to augmentation. The real power of AI for businesses right now comes from "agentic AI", smart agents that work on top of and across your current software to get things done.

This is where things get really interesting.

Unifying knowledge from scattered sources

One of the biggest headaches in any company is that information is everywhere. Your customer data is in Salesforce, but the backstory for a support ticket might be in a Slack thread, a process doc is in Confluence, and a similar past ticket is buried in Zendesk.

AI agents act as a single brain that sits on top of all these scattered sources. An employee can ask a question once and get a complete answer pulled from every relevant system. No more switching between ten tabs or searching five different apps to find one piece of information.

This is a core part of what eesel AI does. It instantly connects to your helpdesk, wikis, documents, and past conversations to create a single source of truth. This gives your AI agent the power to deliver complete, context-rich answers, so your teams can stop hunting for information and start solving problems.

Automating tasks across different platforms

Autonomous AI agents are the connective tissue your tech stack has always needed. They can act on information, not just find it. For example, an AI agent could:

1. Spot a high-priority support ticket in Freshdesk.

2. Look up the customer’s order status in Shopify.

3. Create a task in Jira for the engineering team to investigate.

4. Post a quick summary of the issue and the steps taken in a team Slack channel.

This is the "digital labor" that frees up your people from doing the same boring, manual tasks over and over. It’s not about replacing your team, but about giving them superpowers so they can focus on the strategic work that needs a human touch.

With eesel AI’s fully customizable workflow engine, you’re in the driver’s seat. You can design custom actions that let your AI do a lot more than just answer questions. It can tag and triage tickets, pull live data from your internal systems, and escalate issues based on your exact business rules. It’s powerful automation that fits right into how you already work.

Testing and deploying without the stress

Letting an AI loose on your core business systems sounds a little scary, right? The smart way to get started is to test everything thoroughly and roll it out step-by-step. Modern AI agent platforms let you do exactly that by simulating how the AI would perform on your past data before it ever talks to a live customer.

You can see exactly how the AI would have handled thousands of your past support tickets, check its accuracy, and get a solid forecast of the time and money you could save. This data-first approach takes the guesswork out of it and lets you deploy with confidence.

eesel AI was built for this, with a powerful simulation mode that really sets it apart. Before you flip the switch, you can run your setup against thousands of your historical tickets. You’ll get a clear, actionable report on your expected resolution rate and see exactly where the gaps in your knowledge base are. It’s a completely risk-free way to make sure your AI setup is ready for the real world.

eesel AI's simulation mode lets you test your AI setup on historical data risk-free.

The pricing headache sparking the debate

Another big reason companies are looking for alternatives is the famously complicated and murky world of enterprise software pricing.

Both Salesforce and Workday use a custom, quote-based model. You won’t find any public pricing pages to look at. The final cost depends on a ton of variables: how many users or employees you have, which specific modules or "Clouds" you need, the length of your contract, and honestly, how good you are at negotiating. This makes budgeting a nightmare and creates a huge barrier for smaller companies. On top of the license fees, you have to budget for implementation partners, custom development, and hiring certified experts just to manage the thing.

In contrast, modern platforms are taking a much clearer and more direct approach.

Feature	Salesforce	Workday	eesel AI
Pricing Model	Custom Quote-Based	Custom Quote-Based	Transparent, Tiered Plans
Public Pricing	No	No	Yes, starting at $299/mo
Key Cost Driver	Per user, per "Cloud"	Per employee, per module	Monthly AI interactions
Contract Terms	Typically annual or multi-year	Typically multi-year	Monthly or annual, cancel anytime

This is a deliberate choice. eesel AI’s pricing is transparent, public, and based on the value you actually get (AI interactions), not how many seats you have. There are no hidden setup fees, and you can start with a simple monthly plan without getting locked into a long-term contract. It’s predictable, accessible, and designed to grow with you.

The verdict: It’s integration, not replacement

So, can AI really replace Salesforce Workday? The whole debate is a bit of a distraction. These foundational systems aren’t disappearing tomorrow. The real, immediate opportunity isn’t to replace them, but to make them better with a smart, flexible, and easy-to-use AI layer.

The future of business software is using AI agents to unlock the data trapped inside your existing tools, automate the workflows that connect them, and empower your teams to focus on what they do best. The goal isn’t to tear down your tech stack, but to make it smarter, faster, and a whole lot more efficient.

Get started with an AI layer in minutes

You don’t need a massive budget or a team of developers to start adding this AI layer to your business today.

With eesel AI, you can connect your helpdesk and knowledge sources in one click and deploy a powerful AI agent in minutes, not months. You can see exactly how it will perform on your own data before you go live and start automating your support workflows right away.

Sign up for a free trial or book a demo to see how you can bring a world-class AI agent to your existing workflow.