Salesforce pledges $1 billion for Italy expansion, targeting agentic AI adoption through new Milan hub and training academy

Salesforce said it plans to invest $1 billion in Italy over the next five years, pairing a new Milan office with workforce growth and AI upskilling programs as it pushes “agentic AI” through its Agentforce platform.

The announcement was made by Salesforce Chair and CEO Marc Benioff during a visit to Italy ahead of the Third Annual Rome Conference on AI, Ethics, and Governance. In remarks tied to the trip, Benioff framed the spending as a way to help companies become “agentic enterprises,” a term Salesforce uses for organizations that integrate people, AI agents, business applications, and data on a single platform.

Salesforce said its Italy footprint dates to September 2003, and that it has created more than 600 direct jobs there. It added that Salesforce Italy today serves thousands of customers and supports a partner ecosystem, and it described the new investment as a continuation of that growth.

As part of the plan, Salesforce will open a new Milan office at Palazzo Missori, a “Grade A” development in the city’s central business district. The office will include collaborative spaces for customers, partners and employees to design and deploy AI that addresses business needs, and it will function as a training hub for AI upskilling and work readiness.

To support skills development beyond individual training sessions, Salesforce said it will launch the Enterprise Architecture Academy. The program is intended to accelerate AI readiness across partners and customers by building what Salesforce calls the “architectural foundation” for digital transformation, and it initially will involve more than 70 participants, including partners, customers, and Salesforce Solution Engineers.

Salesforce’s release links the investment to adoption of Agentforce in both enterprise and public sector settings in Italy. The company said Agentforce underpins work at organizations including Ferrari, Enel, UniCredit, Telepass, and Trenitalia, along with small and medium-sized businesses across the country.

In the public sector, Salesforce said it is a selected technology provider for organizations working to improve citizen outcomes, including INPS, Italy’s National Institute for Social Security. Salesforce did not provide additional performance metrics in the release, but it described its approach as helping organizations handle “complexity behind the scenes” so teams can focus on serving customers.

The company also used the announcement to reiterate its emphasis on responsible AI. Salesforce said it is a signatory of the Vatican-led Rome Call for AI Ethics, and it positioned the Italy investment as aligned with that ethical stance. It also highlighted other workforce and community initiatives, including its 1-1-1 philanthropic model in Italy, which it said has supported $926,000 in total giving and 73,500 volunteer hours across 318 nonprofit and higher-education organizations.

Finally, Salesforce said it is working with ELIS, a nonprofit consortium of companies, educational institutions, and civic organizations, to promote career longevity for workers over 55 through personalized learning pathways and intergenerational collaboration. It also referenced a reskilling effort called “Now to Next” with Randstad Italia and Samsung, launched in connection with its sponsorship of the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, aimed at helping elite athletes transition to the modern workforce.

For now, the details released by Salesforce focus on expansion and programs rather than financial disclosures. The company did not specify expected revenue impact, the exact number of additional hires, or the portion of the $1 billion allocated to each initiative (office, headcount, and training). It also did not break out which specific AI use cases it expects customers in Italy to prioritize first, leaving the operational timeline to be clarified as the new Milan office and the Academy roll out.