One company that has adopted Chatter on a large scale is Dell, where it has been deployed to about 113,000 users, he said. There, it helped Chairman and CEO Michael Dell bring employees from two departments together to carry through on a sale, Benioff said.

"You've got to have massive communication. You have to have overcommunication," Benioff said. Ultimately, that transparency between executives and employees builds trust and allows everyone to work as one team.

Asked if rogue employees with access to sensitive information could use all that sharing to disrupt a business, Benioff pointed to the WikiLeaks scandal and said .

"It's the government and it's all on-premise, and it's the top security in the world," yet data still was leaked, he said. With proper leadership, setting up an open communication system might even make those kinds of leaks less likely, Benioff said.