Salesforce seems unafraid of a future in which people use an AI chatbot like Claude to access Salesforce enterprise apps and underlying databases to get work done, rather than visiting those apps themselves. Figma, an enterprise design app, naturally wants a different future.

Dylan Field, Figma’s CEO, said Wednesday that as the company’s in-house AI tools for designing apps and other user interfaces get better, “we'll see more and more of that work happening in Figma directly,” rather than using Claude or other prominent AI assistants to do such work.

Nvidia is doubling down on its open-source efforts, pouring investment into an ambitious new in-house AI model that it hopes will drive demand for its hardware—but that could also compete with customers and partners.

Nvidia is aiming for the new model, the biggest of a family that it is calling Nemotron 4, to be on par in its performance with the best open-source AI models in the world, according to several people who work on Nemotron. The research paper detailing Nvidia’s last big model had 570 authors, and employees said Nemotron 4 would involve even more people. “Everyone just wants to be involved at this point,” one former employee said.

Salesforce on Wednesday told state government agencies in Washington and California that it plans to permanently layoff 133 employees at the start of October

Some 74 employees will be cut in San Francisco, California, the company’s headquarters, while 59 will be laid off in Bellevue and Seattle, ...

Welcome back!

Software companies have been at pains to flaunt the success of their AI products, as they seek to dispel investor fears that AI apps are threatening their existence. Two reports this week show that developing popular AI products is only half the challenge. 

Canva, the design software company popular among students and business owners, warned investors this week that its annual revenue growth would slow to 20%. The reason: it was tapping the brakes on a planned AI rollout expected to drive paying subscriptions—after demand had proved higher and more expensive to serve than anticipated. 

Then on Thursday, Figma said it expects a slowdown in revenue growth for the September quarter, to 36% from 48% in June. In its case, the publicly traded design software company suggested it’s still figuring out how to generate sales from new AI tools that are still in beta, or testing phases, or early in their release. 

Atlassian shares soared as much as 38% in after-hours trading on Thursday after the enterprise software company reported its first quarterly operating profit in more than two years. Atlassian CEO and cofounder Mike Cannon-Brookes said he planned to start buying as much as $250 million in shares, ...