AI talent war: Software industry is a new target as top executives jump ship to OpenAI

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi (L) takes a group photo with AI company leaders including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman (C) and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei (R) at the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi on February 19, 2026. Ludovic Marin | Afp | Software giants are seeing their worst stock performance in years on fears of AI disruption. Now they have a new problem. Several top software executives have been poached by AI giants that are hunting for talent with sales and go-to-market experience, according to sources. Executives from Salesforce , Snowflake , and Datadog have been poached recently by OpenAI and Anthropic, lured by large compensation packages and the opportunity to bring existing corporate relationships to these AI companies, according to multiple sources. Salesforce and OpenAI declined to comment. CNBC reached out to Snowflake and Datadog for comment. One of OpenAI's splashiest software hires was Denise Dresser . Dresser is now the chief revenue officer and previously served as CEO of the communication platform Slack within Salesforce. Jennifer Majlessi also joined Salesforce last month and took a role as head of go-to-market at OpenAI, according to LinkedIn. Anthropic has also hired from Salesforce, according to a source familiar with the hires. Competing for talent isn't new in AI. Elite researchers have been the highlight of the so-called " talent war " in AI, attracting multimillion-dollar salaries and signing bonuses in the tens of millions. …