I'm aware that "what does Salesforce actually do?" is a joke but I also really don't know what they do and this article didn't help. They... have conversations with customers? What does the AI do?
They make hideously complicated software to help businesses manage their business. You need consultants to help integrate it and to make any changes to it. The interfaces are convoluted and require learning how they work rather than having any kind of discoverability. Switching to their systems often involves a dip in customer satisfaction. Switching off of their systems is nearly impossible by design.
A big chunk of it is like an enterprisey, old TwentyCRM. It connects with everything, and nobody got fired for choosing salesforce. And the decision makers all play golf together.