This May, we brought together principals from San Francisco and Oakland middle schools, along with Salesforce executives and leaders from local nonprofit organizations, at Salesforce Tower for a summit celebrating the importance of supporting public education, deepening partnership and learning with school leaders, and navigating the path forward for education in the AI era. 

The conversations that emerged made clear just how much is at stake as schools try to adopt AI responsibly. The questions they’re wrestling with aren’t unique to education, though. They’re the same ones facing employers, workers, and public institutions across every sector of the economy.

No longer the domain of technical teams, AI is reshaping how work gets done across customer service, healthcare, education, government, sales, operations, HR, and communications, and no sector can navigate that shift alone. Education sits at the intersection of this transition, which is why we at Salesforce invest in education and workforce readiness as deliberately as we invest in technology. We want to ensure that students, educators, and the institutions that support them are equipped for what comes next.

That’s why Salesforce is endorsing the bipartisan Economy of the Future Commission Act, which would establish a cross-sector commission to evaluate AI’s impact on employment, education, and long-term U.S. economic competitiveness. Within seven months of enactment, the commission would publish an interim report on expected workforce changes. Within 13 months, it would deliver actionable legislative recommendations spanning AI education, reskilling, career and technical training, and strategies for maintaining U.S. global leadership in the AI era.

The bill reflects a reality that we see every day in our work with government agencies and school systems: Workforce readiness is at the heart of responsible AI policy.

Workforce skilling starts in the classroom 

Preparing people for an AI-powered economy starts long before someone enters the labor market. AI fluency should be thoughtfully embedded across K–12, career training, and higher education so that it becomes a foundational skill.

In enterprise settings, employees are able to iterate and experiment with new technologies. But classrooms are high-stakes environments, where the cost of ineffective tools or approaches can directly affect student learning, career readiness, and long-term opportunity.

The federal and state agencies making real progress are the ones that treat AI readiness holistically, combining trusted data, responsible governance, secure implementation, and workforce enablement.

Educators are deeply committed to helping young people succeed but are often stretched thin in their capacity by administrative burden. AI can help teachers who are understaffed and underresourced, and it’s already helping identify individual student learning gaps to deliver targeted practice. For example, through Salesforce Accelerator — Agents for Impact, AI agents can help with everything from developing tailored skills-building programs to offering personalized coaching that supports students through the college application process. At the same time, hands-on AI literacy workshops help young people learn how to think critically about data security, hallucinations, and plagiarism.

This is also where the same guardrails that guide Salesforce products are especially important in schools — transparency, audit trails, hallucination reduction, and human-centered decisions. We believe AI should be adopted at schools in ethical and responsible ways to genuinely serve and protect students. 

We also aim to support this progress by equipping educators with practical, accessible resources. Through our Principal Innovation Fund, now more than a decade strong in partnership with San Francisco and Oakland unified school districts, each middle school principal receives $100,000 to invest based on their school’s needs. The premise is simple: Principals are the CEOs of their schools. 

To date, the program has delivered more than $50 million to local schools. The fund is just one part of a broader ecosystem that includes philanthropic partnerships with nonprofits — including Genesys Works, aiEDU, and Catch22 — to expand student academic success, AI literacy, and early-career experiences.

Reskilling extends into the broader workforce, too

Workforce readiness extends beyond graduation. This includes emerging talent, those switching careers, veterans, community members, and public servants, all of whom must navigate AI transformation.

To support this, Salesforce recently launched a Builder program designed to recruit 1,000 graduates and interns and fast-track them into high-impact roles. More broadly, our programs span learners at every stage of the journey.

• Through Trailhead, Salesforce’s free, on-demand learning platform, more than 11 million learners worldwide can build AI skills through training on generative AI, responsible AI, data literacy, and the safe and effective use of AI tools.
• Agentforce Success for All extends that access to small business owners, nonprofits, educators, and community members, helping them build practical AI skills through high-touch, live learning. 
• Salesforce Military supports veterans, transitioning service members, and military spouses with training, certifications, career pathways, and mentorship.

And through our employee volunteer program and 1-1-1 philanthropic model, Salesforce employees have contributed more than 273,000 hours to education-focused volunteer work in the last year alone — supporting hands-on AI skills development for the next generation of workers and helping connect students to future career pathways.

Government and industry can build together

Closing the AI skills gap at scale requires partnership. When the public and private sectors collaborate, their combined strengths create stronger, more durable outcomes. Governments bring vital policy frameworks and public trust. The private sector brings technical expertise, scalable platforms, and the ability to move at the pace of technological change.

At Salesforce, we work with a range of federal and state agencies, and those making real progress are the ones that treat AI readiness holistically, combining trusted data, responsible governance, secure implementation, and workforce enablement.

The policy conversation we should be having

As AI continues to reshape tasks, workflows, and skill requirements across roles — within our own workforce — policy conversations should focus less on fear of job displacement and more on readiness for evolving work. 

The Economy of the Future Commission Act is a meaningful step in that direction. By bringing together experts in education, labor, commerce, and economic policy, the commission would develop practical, evidence-based recommendations on AI education, reskilling, career and technical training, and U.S. global competitiveness.

Salesforce stands alongside a broad coalition of industry and civil society partners in supporting this effort, including Google, IBM, Jobs for the Future, Meta, Microsoft, SHRM, and Workday. The future of work shouldn’t be something that happens to people. It should be something we build together.