, /PRNewswire/ -- Veeva Systems (NYSE: VEEV) today announced that Eli Lilly and Company (Lilly) has committed to Veeva Vault CRM globally.
Vault CRM is part of the Vault CRM Suite of applications that provides the technology foundation for agentic commercial, the new commercial model that leverages AI to get the right medicines to more patients.
Veeva Vault CRM Selected by Eli Lilly and Company "We are excited to expand our strategic work with Veeva by moving to Vault CRM," said Giuseppe Firenze, senior vice president, U.S. HCP and field engagement hub at Lilly. "Vault CRM will help Lilly bring our breakthrough medicines to more patients."
"Lilly creates medicines that make life better for people around the world," said Veeva CEO Peter Gassner. "We are proud to expand our strategic work with Lilly as they roll out Vault CRM globally."
Learn more about Veeva Vault CRM Suite, including the Agentic Call Report to generate Commercial Evidence, at veeva.com/crm.
About Veeva Systems
Veeva delivers the industry cloud for life sciences with applications, agents, data, and consulting. Committed to innovation, product excellence, and customer success, Veeva serves more than 1,500 customers, ranging from the world's largest pharmaceutical companies to emerging biotechs. As a Public Benefit Corporation, Veeva is committed to balancing the interests of all stakeholders, including customers, employees, shareholders, and the industries it serves. For more information, visit veeva.com.
Veeva Forward-Looking Statements
This release contains forward-looking statements regarding Veeva's products and services and the expected results or benefits from use of our products and services. These statements are based on our current expectations. Actual results could differ materially from those provided in this release and we have no obligation to update such statements. There are numerous risks that have the potential to negatively impact our results, including the risks and uncertainties disclosed in our filing on Form 10-Q for the fiscal year ended April 30, 2026, which you can find here (a summary of risks which may impact our business can be found on pages 33 and 34), and in our subsequent SEC filings, which you can access at sec.gov.
Akcie Salesforce za posledních 12 měsíců klesly o 17,2 %, zatímco ARR Agentforce meziročně vyskočil o 205 % na 1,2 miliardy USD. Kombinované AI a Data ARR dosáhlo 3,4 miliardy USD.
Key Takeaways Salesforce fell 17.2% as AI concerns and cautious enterprise spending weigh on software stocks.Agentforce ARR jumped 205% to $1.2 billion, while combined AI and Data ARR reached $3.4 billion.CRM trades at a 12.99 forward P/E, below the sector average, making its valuation more attractive. Salesforce Inc. (CRM - Free Report) has had a difficult year. The stock has fallen 17.2% over the past 12 months, significantly underperforming the Zacks Computer and Technology sector, which has gained 31.7% during the same period.
However, Salesforce is not alone. Other major software companies, including Adobe Inc. (ADBE - Free Report) , SAP SE (SAP - Free Report) and Oracle Corporation (ORCL - Free Report) , have also faced strong selling pressure. Adobe, SAP and Oracle have declined 20.5%, 28.2% and 41.8%, respectively. This suggests that investors are questioning the outlook for the broader software industry rather than simply losing confidence in Salesforce.
Salesforce One-Year Price Return Performance
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
AI Concerns Weigh on Salesforce StockThe rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI), particularly agentic AI, is one of the biggest concerns facing software companies. AI agents can increasingly perform tasks with limited human involvement, raising questions about the traditional software-as-a-service model.
Investors are worried that companies could eventually need fewer software users as AI takes over more business processes. This could put pressure on subscription-based revenue models that charge customers based on the number of users.
The broader economy is adding to these concerns. High interest rates, inflation and geopolitical uncertainty have made businesses more careful about technology spending. Enterprises are taking longer to approve large software deals, creating longer sales cycles across the industry.
Salesforce is exposed to these challenges because its business depends heavily on large enterprise customers. Slower IT budgets could make it harder to win new customers and expand existing contracts.
Still, Salesforce's recent performance suggests that the company's core business remains resilient.
CRM’s Revenue Growth Shows Signs of StabilizingSalesforce's slowing revenue growth has been a major concern for investors. As the company has grown larger, maintaining the rapid growth rates of its earlier years has naturally become more difficult.
Recent results, however, provide some reason for optimism.
First-quarter fiscal 2027 revenues increased 13.3% year over year. While this is well below Salesforce's earlier hypergrowth levels, double-digit growth is still meaningful for a company of its size.
Management expects double-digit revenue growth for the second quarter and full fiscal 2027. These forecasts are broadly aligned with Zacks Consensus Estimates.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
This indicates that Salesforce's business is not losing momentum as quickly as some investors might be fearing. The company's AI products could provide a new source of growth as traditional CRM growth matures.
Salesforce Is Evolving Beyond Traditional CRMSalesforce is still the global leader in customer relationship management (CRM - Free Report) software, according to Gartner. The company is increasingly positioning itself as a broader enterprise data and AI platform.
Its strategy combines customer data, collaboration tools, automation and AI. Acquisitions have played an important role in this transformation. Slack strengthened Salesforce's collaboration capabilities, while Informatica expanded its data management business. More recent acquisitions, including Doti AI and Spindle AI, are further strengthening its AI capabilities.
Agentforce is at the center of this strategy. In the first quarter of fiscal 2027, Agentforce annual recurring revenues (ARR) jumped 205% year over year to $1.2 billion. This is a strong signal that customers are showing real interest in AI-powered agents.
The broader AI and data business is growing even faster. Combined AI and Data ARR, including Agentforce, Data 360 and Informatica Cloud, reached $3.4 billion in the quarter, more than tripling from the year-ago period. Nearly half of Agentforce and Data 360 bookings came from existing customers. This is encouraging because Salesforce can generate more revenues from its large customer base without having to spend as much to acquire entirely new customers.
Given its continued focus on product innovation and market reach, Salesforce can turn this early AI momentum into sustained, large-scale revenue growth.
CRM’s Valuation Looks More AttractiveSalesforce's sharp stock decline has also brought its valuation down significantly. CRM currently trades at a forward 12-month price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 12.99, well below the sector’s average of 21.65.
Salesforce Forward 12-Month P/E Ratio
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Compared with peers, Salesforce also appears reasonably valued. SAP and Oracle trade at forward P/E multiples of 22.94 and 17.21, respectively, while Adobe trades at 10.03 times forward earnings. Although Adobe is cheaper, Salesforce's valuation looks attractive considering its improving growth profile and expanding AI business.
Conclusion: Hold Salesforce Stock for NowSalesforce's more than 17% decline over the past year looks concerning, but the weakness needs to be viewed in the context of a broader software-industry selloff. Salesforce's underlying business continues to show signs of resilience.
Agentforce is gaining traction, AI and Data ARR is growing rapidly, revenue growth has improved, and the stock's valuation is now considerably more reasonable.
However, investors should not ignore the risks. Salesforce still faces questions about the long-term impact of agentic AI on traditional SaaS, slower enterprise technology spending and the company's ability to convert strong AI adoption into sustained revenue growth.
For now, these positives and risks appear reasonably balanced. Investors who already own Salesforce stock should hold CRM for now rather than sell into the weakness. New investors, meanwhile, should wait for clearer evidence that the AI opportunity is translating into durable financial gains.
Salesforce currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Investors who buy Salesforce (CRM -3.95%) today are really betting on whether CEO Marc Benioff's "agentic enterprise" vision sticks, not just whether the next quarter beats expectations.
His conviction isn't just bravado; it's tied to a specific bet that artificial intelligence (AI) will become digital labor within Salesforce rather than a commodity feature that would make its platform irrelevant.
That makes the stock a higher‑risk, higher‑reward hold or accumulation story, not a sleepy blue chip.
Image source: Getty Images.
When Benioff pushes back on fears that AI will kill Salesforce, he's arguing that the company has rebuilt itself around the idea of the agentic enterprise -- a world where AI agents do work and humans provide judgment. On Salesforce's own materials, you can see the evolution: Einstein introduced predictive AI, then generative capabilities layered on top, and now Agentforce is presented as agentic AI that plans and executes multistep tasks grounded in unified customer data.
In its fiscal 2026 press release, Salesforce describes itself as "the operating system for the Agentic Enterprise" and introduces Agentic Work Units, a way of counting tasks completed by AI agents, with 2.4 billion of those units already delivered. To me, that's a quiet but important signal: Salesforce is trying to measure and sell AI as labor, not just as another checkbox feature.
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Some aspects to watch out for Wall Street's anxiety still has teeth. The company itself, in that same release, lists "uncertainties regarding AI technologies and their integration into our product offerings" among key risks. Salesforce is pushing a transition from simple seat‑based pricing toward consumption metrics tied to AI work. That may be smart over a decade, but in the near term, it muddies visibility for investors who grew comfortable tracking users and subscription revenue.
There's also execution risk: Salesforce is simultaneously ramping Agentforce, expanding Data 360, and weaving AI through Slack and other acquired platforms. Even in its own language, the business acknowledges dependence on external model providers and a shifting regulatory backdrop. A strategy this ambitious leaves less margin for error.
At the same time, the internal signals around AI look more substantial than hype. Salesforce reports Agentforce annual recurring revenue (ARR) of $800 million, up 169% year over year, with 29,000 deals closed and Agentforce accounts in production up nearly 50% quarter over quarter. Those numbers are still small relative to total revenue, but they show customers paying directly for AI agents rather than passively accepting them.
Data 360 ingestion, hitting 112 trillion records in fiscal 2026, more than doubled the prior year, suggesting customers are consolidating more of their customer data and workflows on Salesforce's rails. The more intelligence moves to where work happens, the more valuable that data gravity becomes.
So should investors bet on Benioff's conviction? To me, Salesforce today is best used as a deliberate, sized wager on a specific AI thesis -- that large enterprises will demand trusted, governed AI labor deeply integrated with their customer data. If you buy that premise and can tolerate volatility while this agentic model matures, the current skepticism‑driven pullback looks like a reasonable entry point.
If you think AI will be commoditized and lighter tools will win, this is a stock to approach cautiously or avoid.
Salesforce has appointed an operating chief under CEO Marc Benioff, promoting Miguel Milano to the role.
Milano, a former Oracle executive, rejoined Salesforce as chief revenue officer in 2023. He previously worked for Salesforce in Europe from 2011 to 2020 and then spent three years at data processing company Celonis as chief revenue officer. He made his first appearance on Salesforce earnings calls last year.
The promotion, announced on Wednesday, signals another attempt to widen the leadership ranks at Salesforce, which Benioff co-founded in 1999 and has run ever since. In recent years, Salesforce experimented with co-CEOs, but both Keith Block and then Bret Taylor left the company after sharing the top job with Benioff.
Last year Salesforce made board member Robin Washington its chief operating and financial officer. Her title will remain, even as Milano assumes the COO title.
Salesforce shares have tumbled 27% this year, alongside a broader slide in software stocks that are getting hammered on concerns that cloud software vendors will get displaced by artificial intelligence. Salesforce has pushing its Agentforce AI services that automate tasks.
The stock slipped another 4% in extended trading on Wednesday.
Srini Tallapragada, president and chief engineering and customer success officer, is leaving the company after 14 years. Rohan Kumar, a longtime Microsoft executive who came to Salesforce in June, is becoming chief platform and engineering officer, taking on new engineering responsibility. Tallapragada will be special advisor to Benioff for the next year, helping with the transition, according to a filing.
Milano was the fourth-highest-paid Salesforce executive in the 2026 fiscal year, behind Benioff, Washington and Tallapragada, according to a regulatory filing.
Alexa Vignone, a 10-year Salesforce veteran who has been chief sales officer since January, will take on the title of revenue chief.
Salesforce's revenue growth has accelerated this year after coming in below 10% for six straight quarters. Annualized revenue from Agentforce has exceeded $1 billion, executives said in May.
Slack tvořil téměř polovinu zakázek Salesforce nad 1 milion USD ACV a bookings v této kategorii meziročně vzrostly o 80 %. Více než 1 milion uživatelů si během šesti týdnů osvojilo Slack MCP, zatímco Agentic Work Units vzrostly téměř o 350 %.
Key Takeaways Slack accounted for nearly half of Salesforce's $1M-plus ACV deals, with bookings up 80% year over year.More than 1 million users adopted Slack MCP in six weeks, while Agentic Work Units jumped nearly 350%.Slack's links with Agentforce and Data 360 could lift cross-selling, retention and Salesforce's revenue mix. Slack is becoming a much bigger contributor to Salesforce, Inc.'s (CRM - Free Report) artificial intelligence (AI) strategy. Once known primarily as a workplace messaging platform, Slack is now evolving into an AI-powered collaboration hub that connects employees, applications and AI agents. This transformation could help Salesforce generate higher-value software revenues and deepen customer relationships.
The momentum is already visible. During the first quarter of fiscal 2027, Slack accounted for nearly half of Salesforce's deals worth more than $1 million in annual contract value. Slack bookings in this category increased 80% year over year, reflecting strong enterprise demand for AI-enabled workplace solutions.
Salesforce is also embedding AI capabilities directly into Slack. Slackbot now functions as a Model Context Protocol (“MCP”) client, enabling users to interact with enterprise applications using natural language. The company reported that more than 1 million users adopted Slack MCP within its first six weeks, while Slack Agentic Work Units surged nearly 350% sequentially. These metrics highlight growing customer engagement with AI-powered workflows.
The tighter integration between Slack, Agentforce and Data 360 creates additional cross-selling opportunities. Customers using Slack can more easily adopt Salesforce's broader AI platform, helping increase spending across multiple products. This ecosystem approach also improves customer retention by making Salesforce's offerings more deeply integrated into daily business operations.
Salesforce's first-quarter fiscal 2027 revenues rose 13% year over year to $11.13 billion, supported by strong AI demand. As Slack continues evolving into an enterprise AI platform rather than just a communication tool, it could contribute a larger share of Salesforce's revenue mix and support sustainable long-term growth. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for full-fiscal 2027 revenues is currently pegged at $46.09 billion, indicating a year-over-year increase of approximately 11%.
How Do Salesforce's Collaboration Rivals Compare?Two key competitors challenging Salesforce's AI-powered collaboration strategy are Microsoft Corporation (MSFT - Free Report) and Zoom Communications, Inc. (ZM - Free Report) . Both are embedding generative AI into workplace collaboration platforms to increase customer engagement and drive higher software spending.
Microsoft has integrated Copilot across Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365, giving users AI-powered meeting summaries, content creation and workflow automation. This strategy is helping expand the value of its productivity suite.
In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026, Microsoft reported revenues of $90 billion, up 18% year over year, while Microsoft 365 Commercial cloud revenues increased 14%. The company also reported Azure revenue growth of 43%, providing a strong foundation for continued AI investments that compete directly with Salesforce's Slack ecosystem.
Zoom is also expanding beyond video conferencing by embedding Zoom AI Companion across meetings, chat and contact center offerings. In the first quarter of fiscal 2027, Zoom's enterprise revenues increased 7% year over year to about $758 million, while enterprise customers generating more than $100,000 in annual revenues grew 8% to nearly 4,534.
Zoom is using AI to encourage customers to adopt multiple products, similar to Salesforce's strategy of linking Slack with Agentforce and Data 360.
Salesforce’s Price Performance, Valuation and EstimatesShares of Salesforce have plunged 29.8% year to date, while the Zacks Internet – Software industry has fallen 11.3%.
Salesforce YTD Price Return Performance
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
From a valuation standpoint, CRM trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 12.55, significantly below the industry’s average of 26.22.
Salesforce Forward 12-Month P/E Ratio
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Salesforce’s fiscal 2027 and 2028 earnings implies a year-over-year increase of approximately 13.1% and 9.3%, respectively. Estimates for fiscal 2027 earnings have been revised upward in the past seven days, while estimates have been revised downward for fiscal 2028 over the past seven days.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Salesforce currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Akcie Salesforce letos klesly o 25 %, ale firma hlásí, že AI pohání růst: tržby v 1. čtvrtletí fiskálního roku 2027 stouply meziročně o 13 % a Agentforce překročil 1 miliardu USD v ročních opakovaných tržbách.
Fears of artificial intelligence replacing SaaS companies were the major factor that caused Salesforce (CRM +1.83%) to decline by 25% this year. However, more people are realizing that the drop was unwarranted. Shares are up by almost 20% over the past month, and real fundamental growth is driving the rally.
Image source: Getty Images.
Agentic AI is driving growth One of the big shocks for SaaSpocolypse advocates is that Salesforce and other software companies are actually gaining market share thanks to AI. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff told investors that agentic AI is "the biggest growth opportunity for our customers" while discussing fiscal 2027 first-quarter results.
Salesforce also touted itself as the No. 1 agentic CRM as it crossed $1 billion in Agentforce annual recurring revenue. Salesforce has delivered 3.8 billion Agentic Work Units to its customers, showing that demand is heating up.
Revenue for its fiscal 2027's first quarter was up by 13% year over year, thanks in part to agentic AI. Those 3.8 billion Agentic Work Units also represent a 111% sequential growth rate. Increased usage of agentic AI may force enterprises to upgrade their Salesforce plans. That's part of the reason Agentforce and Data 360 annual recurring revenue surged by more than 200% year over year.
Guidance suggests that the momentum will continue. Salesforce told investors to expect $11.31 billion in revenue at the midpoint of its fiscal 2027 second-quarter guidance. Its revenue range implies 10% to 11% year-over-year growth. Salesforce also anticipates 11% year-over-year revenue growth in full-year fiscal 2027.
A backlog of $33.6 billion in current remaining performance obligations supports those lofty goals. Its current RPOs are up 14% year over year.
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The valuation is too low to ignore Salesforce has become much cheaper due to the prolonged correction and stronger fundamentals. It only trades at a 21 P/E ratio, while it traded above a 40 P/E ratio less than one year ago.
The company's 52% year-over-year earnings per share growth in its fiscal 2027's first quarter suggests that the stock's valuation will get more attractive in the upcoming quarters. Those sales are backed by high annual recurring revenue and a vast pipeline of future sales.
It's not every day that investors interpret a tailwind as a headwind. Investors feared that Salesforce would be replaced or lose significant market share because of artificial intelligence. However, it has used that same technology to attract more businesses, retain existing customers, and get enterprises to upgrade their plans.
Agentic AI is a major part of Salesforce's long-term story, and growth continues to be parabolic. As the year-to-date dip looks harder to justify, Salesforce may find itself in a better position to reclaim its 52-week high.
Salesforce získala od ministerstva pro záležitosti veteránů USA tříletý kontrakt na AI produkty Agentforce v hodnotě až 1,6 miliardy USD. Dohoda má podpořit virtuální podporu, triáž pacientů i plánování termínů.
On Friday, the Department of Veterans Affairs awarded Salesforce (CRM +5.87%) a contract with a ceiling of $1.6 billion -- a three-year Agentic Enterprise License Agreement built around the company's artificial intelligence (AI) agent products. Shares rose more than 4% on Friday following the announcement.
The dollar figure is what grabbed attention. But the more interesting part of the award is what it says about demand for Agentforce, the AI agent product at the center of Salesforce's growth story. After all, federal agencies aren't known for speculative technology purchases. A multiyear agreement of this size suggests AI agents are moving out of pilot projects and into real procurement budgets.
Still, investors should understand what a $1.6 billion ceiling actually is. And what it isn't.
Image source: Getty Images.
What the VA actually bought The award covers Agentforce Public Sector and Agentforce Health, along with Slack, MuleSoft, Tableau, and the company's Data 360 platform, through Missionforce, its government cloud business. The VA operates 170 medical centers and over 1,100 outpatient clinics, serving more than 17 million veterans. Salesforce said the agency will use Agentforce for around-the-clock virtual contact center support, patient triage, benefits verification, and scheduling -- including a goal of cutting the time to schedule an appointment from an average of 28 days to minutes.
"Every minute a VA employee spends navigating disconnected systems is a minute not spent serving a Veteran," said Kendall Collins, CEO of Salesforce's Missionforce and government cloud business, in the company's press release about the award.
Now for the distinction that matters. The agreement is structured as one base year with two one-year renewal options. And $1.6 billion is the most the VA can spend across all three years, not what it has committed to spend. The award converts into revenue only as the agency actually orders services.
If the deployment goes well, the renewals likely follow. If it doesn't, the agency can walk away after the first year.
Even in the best case, the money arrives over three years. At the full ceiling, that averages out to a little over $500 million annually (about 1% of the roughly $46 billion in revenue Salesforce expects this fiscal year). To me, the signal is worth more than the dollars.
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Agentforce is becoming a real business That signal adds to a growing pile of evidence that Agentforce is scaling quickly.
In the fiscal first quarter of 2027 (the period ended April 30, 2026), Agentforce annual recurring revenue (ARR) reached $1.2 billion, up 205% year over year. Two quarters earlier, that figure had just crossed half a billion dollars. The business has more than doubled in six months -- and it's still climbing.
Combined with Data 360, Salesforce's AI and data products now carry nearly $3.4 billion in ARR, up more than 200% year over year, though about $1.1 billion of that arrived with the company's acquisition of Informatica. The broader business is moving in the right direction, too, with fiscal first-quarter revenue rising 13% year over year to $11.1 billion.
Sure, a few billion dollars of ARR is a sliver of the $45.9 billion to $46.2 billion in revenue Salesforce has guided for this fiscal year, which implies 11% growth. But it's the fastest-growing piece of the business, and management is counting on it. "We remain confident in delivering organic revenue acceleration in the second half of FY27," said Salesforce chief financial officer Robin Washington in the fiscal first-quarter earnings release.
A federal agency attaching a $1.6 billion ceiling to agentic software backs that confidence up. It isn't even the year's biggest example. In January, the U.S. Army awarded the company a $5.6 billion, 10-year ceiling agreement built around Missionforce, Salesforce's national security platform.
Meanwhile, the stock is priced as if little of this matters. Even after Friday's pop, shares closed at $163.66, down about 40% from their 52-week high. That's less than 12 times the midpoint of management's adjusted earnings-per-share guidance for this fiscal year -- a multiple more typical of a slow-growth value stock than of a company growing revenue at a double-digit clip with AI products compounding at triple-digit rates.
The VA deal won't move this year's numbers much. What it could move is the bear case: the idea that AI agents will eventually eat into businesses like Salesforce's instead of feeding them. It's hard to square that fear with one of the country's largest healthcare systems betting its call centers and scheduling on Agentforce.
I thought the stock looked attractive before Friday, and this award makes the case easier to believe. If the VA exercises its first renewal next year, the deal may start to look less like a headline and more like a template. At today's valuation, I don't think investors need that to happen to do well. But it wouldn't hurt.
Salesforce v posledním čtvrtletí překonal odhady: EPS činil 3,88 USD a tržby 11,13 miliardy USD. ARR z Agentforce a Data 360 vzrostly meziročně o více než 200 % na téměř 3,4 miliardy USD.
I keep buying Salesforce (NYSE:CRM | CRM Price Prediction) because the crowd screaming “SaaSpocalypse” is looking at a stock chart while I am looking at a receipts book. The stock is down 34.05% year to date while the S&P 500 is up 8.82%, and every time the gap widens, I add more shares. My cost basis keeps working in my favor, and the business underneath keeps compounding.
The Receipts Behind My Conviction Start with what actually happened last quarter. Salesforce delivered EPS of $3.88 against a consensus of $3.1271, a 24.08% beat and the fifth consecutive quarter of exceeding estimates. Revenue landed at $11.13 billion, up 13.27% year over year. Net income jumped 36.73%. These are the numbers of a compounder that the market has decided to price like a melting ice cube.
Then there is the AI receipt in plain view. Agentforce and Data 360 combined ARR reached nearly $3.4 billion, up over 200% year over year. Agentforce alone crossed $1.2 billion in ARR, growing 205%. Customers delivered 3.8 billion Agentic Work Units, and more than 50% of new Agentforce bookings came from existing customers. That is real recurring revenue from enterprises paying to have agents do work inside their systems of record. Industry surveys show over 60% of CIOs prefer upgrading incumbent SaaS vendors rather than replacing them with raw models, citing SOC2 compliance and audit trails that startups cannot match. That is the moat.
The capital return finishes the case. Salesforce executed a $25 billion accelerated share repurchase, taking diluted share count from 970 million to 871 million in a year. Total returned in the quarter: $27.5 billion. With a P/E of 19, a free cash flow yield of 10.12%, and a 1.11% dividend that was raised 5.8% this year, I am buying growth at a value multiple.
Why Not the Obvious Alternatives Readers ask about ServiceNow (NYSE:NOW) and HubSpot (NYSE:HUBS). ServiceNow is down 51% from its 52-week high, and CLSA just initiated with an underperform rating and a $72 price target implying 31% downside. HubSpot got cut by Wells Fargo from Overweight to Equal Weight with the target sliced from $300 to $225 on AI transition uncertainty. Salesforce already carries the average Wall Street target of $254.42 against a stock trading at $173.79. Same fear, better fundamentals, cheaper entry.
The Risk I Own Noncurrent debt jumped from $10.4 billion to $39.3 billion to fund the buyback, and Informatica integration is a real execution project. Interest coverage of 27.5x and net debt to EBITDA of 0.78 tell me the balance sheet absorbs it. I am fine with management leaning into a cheap stock.
Marc Benioff called this “an outstanding quarter for Salesforce, record revenue, record deals, and cash flow” and set a $63 billion FY30 revenue target. I will keep buying while the market sells me a compounder at a value multiple.
Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Salesforce didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today.
Akcie Salesforce dnes klesly po snížení ratingu Morgan Stanley z „Overweight“ na „Equal Weight“ a cílové ceny z 287 USD na 185 USD. Analytik varuje, že přechod na AI může déle brzdit růst.
Shares of software giant Salesforce (CRM 1.97%) were falling on Tuesday, down as much as 3.9% in early trading, before recovering slightly to a 2.7% decline as of 1:30 p.m. EDT.
The move was somewhat notable, given that the broader Nasdaq Composite was up by about 1.4% at the same time.
Salesforce was on the receiving end of a Wall Street analyst's downgrade today, along with a big price target cut. That led to a sell-off; however, given the stock's bargain-basement valuation, is the analyst's negativity already baked into the share price?
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Morgan Stanley sours on Salesforce's AI transition Salesforce is facing the same headwinds and uncertainties that all software stocks have experienced since the emergence of powerful AI coding agents from Anthropic and other AI labs at the beginning of this year.
Salesforce, of course, isn't standing still. The company has developed its own agentic AI features and capabilities, which it calls Agentforce. In June, Salesforce made a very interesting acquisition with an eye toward the agentic future: customer service agent software company Fin. Fin has already transformed its business model in the manner Salesforce needs to, including an outcome-based pricing model on its fully autonomous customer service agent, run on a custom AI model independent of the major AI labs.
Still, Adam Wood of Morgan Stanley doesn't think it's enough. The analyst lowered his rating on the shares from "Overweight" to "Equal Weight" and his price target from $287 to $185 today.
Wood is actually bullish on the leading indicators for Agentforce and Salesforce's new agentic AI offerings; however, Wood also acknowledges that this is coming at the expense of some of Salesforce's larger, legacy software subscription services. Moreover, Agentforce's revenue is still small, coming in at just a $3.4 billion annualized run rate last quarter; meanwhile, Salesforce projects about $46 billion in revenue this fiscal year. So Agentforce still accounts for only about 7% of revenue; even if that keeps growing fast, a drag on the larger non-agentic business could cap overall growth.
While he believes Salesforce is making the right moves and could emerge as an AI winner, Wood now thinks the inflection to overall company-level organic growth may take longer than expected. Given the uncertainty, he is bringing down the stock price to reflect a compressed valuation multiple that the market now attributes to much of the software sector.
Image source: Getty Images.
Long-term opportunity in the software sector? It should be noted that Salesforce currently trades at roughly $168 per share, which is still below Wood's new price target and represents a valuation of just 12 times this year's earnings estimates.
That valuation implies little to no growth going forward, which may be warranted given the uncertainties around agentic AI. However, Salesforce is returning lots of cash to shareholders through a large share repurchase program. If the company successfully navigates the agentic AI transition and eventually returns to growth, today's valuation could be a bargain. Still, investors should be prepared to wait a while to find out.
Salesforce klesl od prosincového vrcholu v roce 2024 o více než 50 % kvůli obavám ze zpomalení růstu a „SaaSpocalypse“. Tržní kapitalizace spadla z více než 347 miliard USD na zhruba 136 miliard USD.
Salesforce stock has plunged by more than 50% from its December 2024 peak as concerns about its growth outlook have intensified. Its market capitalization has fallen from more than $347 billion to about $136 billion, and the selloff could continue as investors remain concerned about the company's strategy and long-term growth prospects.
CRM stock has been in a steep decline over the past few years as concerns about its growth have escalated. Recently, the stock has dropped because of the rising SaaSpocalypse fears.
SaaSpocalypse is a relatively new term referring to fears that AI agents will replace traditional software and the “per seat” pricing model. A good example of this is what Starbucks is doing.
According to Bloomberg, the company is now building its own AI-assisted replacement for a Microsoft system that tracks inventory and an IBM solution that manages maintenance. It aims to save the $400 million it spends annually on software.
The fears in the software industry escalated this week after IBM published its financial results. IBM said that its business slowed as customers reprioritized their capital expenditure, redirecting it towards hardware purchases like servers and memory.
Salesforce’s organic growth has been slowing for a while. The most recent results showed that its revenue rose by 13% in the first quarter. While this growth is solid for a company that has been in business for years, it was not organic. Its $11.1 billion revenue included $444 million from Informatica, a company it acquired in a $8 billion deal.
The company has been one of the most acquisitive ones in the US. It has spent billions of dollars acquiring firms like Own Company, Fin, Bluebirds, Tableau, and Slack.
Analysts expect that Salesforce’s business will remain under pressure in the coming months. The average estimate is that its revenue jumped by 10% in the last quarter to $11.32 billion. Its annual revenue is expected to be $46.1 billion, followed by $50.4 billion next year.
At face value, there are signs that Salesforce stock has become a bargain. For one, its Non-GAAP forward price-to-earnings ratio has dropped to 11.8, well below the sector median of 24. Its five-year average stands at 24.
Similarly, the forward PEG ratio stands at 0.73, also lower than other companies in the tech industry. The challenge, however, is that these valuation metrics include the extra funds made from its Informatica buyout.
As a result, the company will need more growth catalysts over time. One of this catalysts will be its Agentforce and data segments, whose annual recurring revenue soared to $3.4 billion, a 200% jump. It has deployed over 3.8 billion Agentic Work Units (AWU) across Agentforce and Slack.
READ MORE: Salesforce stock falls after KeyBanc downgrade on AI growth concerns
Salesforce stock chart | Source: TradingView
The weekly chart shows that the CRM share price has slumped in the past few years, moving from a record high of $367 to a low of $146. It remains below the 50-week Exponential Moving Average (EMA).
The stock has also remained below the Supertrend indicator and the 78.6% Fibonacci Retracement level.
Therefore, the stock will likely remain under pressure in the near term. In this, it may drop and retest the year-to-date low of $146.
In the long-term, however, the stock will likely bounce back as investors buy the dip in software stocks.
Salesforce v první polovině roku 2026 klesl o 40,9 %, protože investoři se obávali dopadu agentické AI na tradiční podnikový software. Firma přesto dál rostla v tržbách i zisku a zvýšila spodní hranici výhledu pro fiskální rok 2027.
Shares of enterprise software giant Salesforce (CRM +1.65%) fell 40.9% in the first half of 2026, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence.
Salesforce, like many other software-as-a-service stocks, experienced a violent sell-off to start 2026, despite reporting relatively solid financial results. This was due to the first quarter's "SaaS-pocalypse," in which the rapid adoption of Anthropic's Claude Code tools and open-source agents such as OpenClaw ushered in the era of agentic AI.
Agentic AI's improving capabilities spurred investors to sell software stocks, as fears emerged that these new AI leaders could disrupt traditional enterprise software.
However, Salesforce countered the threat with a slew of acquisitions and a massive buyback program.
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How Salesforce is countering the agentic threat At first glance, it's a bit of a head-scratcher as to why Salesforce fell as much as it did. Salesforce beat revenue and earnings expectations on each of its earnings reports during the first half. Moreover, the company raised the lower end of fiscal 2027 guidance, remaining performance obligations continued to rise, and management even provided a long-term fiscal 2030 revenue guidance of $63 billion. That's about 37% above this year's revenue outlook of $46 billion, and would amount to roughly an 11% annualized growth rate over three years.
Investors appeared to doubt that long-term projection, however, as artificial intelligence labs released ever-more powerful models. In February, Anthropic released industry-specific plugins for its latest Claude model. These advanced tools indicated Anthropic was muscling into the territory of traditional software. The result was widespread selling across the software sector, from which Salesforce wasn't spared.
But there are several ways Salesforce is pivoting to the new agentic AI reality. First, Salesforce introduced its own AI agents back in late 2024, a suite of automation tools called Agentforce. Agentforce has grown rapidly, already reaching a $3.4 billion annualized run rate. However, that total still only accounts for about 7.5% of this year's revenue guidance. So while Agentforce's growth is positive, it's still relatively small, and wouldn't necessarily offset deterioration in the rest of the business.
To augment its AI capabilities, Salesforce also made several "tuck-in" acquisitions during the first half of the year. In February, Salesforce announced the acquisition of Momentum Boost, a platform that enables the ingestion and analysis of unstructured data, including Zoom Communications video calls. In June, Salesforce announced the acquisition of M3ter, a metering and billing company that facilitates consumption-based pricing. If agents begin replacing more humans in corporate environments, one way software companies can continue to grow will be through consumption-based pricing, rather than "seat" based subscription pricing. So the M3ter buy could be consequential to that transition.
But the most consequential acquisition of the first half was Salesforce's $3.6 billion acquisition of Fin, a software company formerly known as Intercom. Fin is a customer service AI chatbot, and the company has already successfully pivoted from a traditional software subscription business to an agentic AI business that charges customers only for successful, fully automated outcomes. Moreover, Fin has built its own custom model, Apex, specifically for the customer service vertical, freeing Fin from having to pay Anthropic or OpenAI for its underlying intelligence.
Image source: Getty Images.
Despite the decline, management remains confident Will all these efforts enable Salesforce to adapt and thrive in an AI future? Only time will tell. However, Salesforce appears confident. During the first half, CEO Marc Benioff repeatedly said, in interviews and on earnings calls, that AI presents a massive growth opportunity for Salesforce rather than a disruption risk.
Not only did Benioff sound confident, but he and Salesforce's management team backed that sentiment up with a massive $25 billion accelerated share repurchase in March, part of a $50 billion total repurchase authorization. That repurchase quickly reduced Salesforce's shares outstanding by 10% over just a few days, though it also increased the company's debt load.
Despite a slight recent bounce in the stock, Salesforce shares still trade at less than 12 times this year's adjusted earnings per share estimates. That's a bargain if Salesforce can continue to survive and grow in the AI era; however, the answer to that overhanging question won't be answered for quarters, if not years.
Salesforce Inc. CRM shares fell 2.5% on Thursday after KeyBanc downgraded the software company, citing concerns that its Agentforce artificial intelligence platform may take longer than expected to become a meaningful growth driver.
The downgrade came despite Salesforce's strong position in enterprise software and follows the company's better-than-expected fiscal first-quarter results reported in late May.
Investors have remained focused on whether the company's AI investments can translate into sustained revenue growth as competition in enterprise artificial intelligence intensifies.
KeyBanc downgraded Salesforce to Sector Weight from Overweight on Thursday, with analyst Jackson Ader pointing to customer feedback and channel checks that suggest Agentforce adoption remains in its early stages.
According to the brokerage, Salesforce continues to benefit from its position as an incumbent platform provider, but evidence indicates that meaningful growth acceleration from Agentforce is further away than previously expected.
The firm said it attends more Salesforce partner and customer events than any other company in its coverage universe.
Customer feedback has been consistent in two areas, according to KeyBanc.
Customers' data is not yet organized to support meaningful AI work, while Agentforce itself is still not ready for broad deployment.
The brokerage added that implementation partners are only now beginning to convert Agentforce proof-of-concept projects into pipeline deals.
KeyBanc also said its survey found that more chief information officers expect to deprioritize Salesforce within their IT budgets over the next 12 months than prioritize it.
The brokerage further noted that it has struggled to find evidence in Salesforce's financial disclosures showing that net-new annual contract value is growing faster than overall annual contract value growth, despite management's comments.
"What we can piece together in the disclosed numbers does not signal building momentum," Ader said.
Ader also acknowledged the timing of the downgrade saying it could be at a poor time.
"But at some point, we have to ask ourselves, why gather the evidence if we’re not going to use it," he added.
AI growth remains under scrutinyThe downgrade comes after Salesforce reported stronger-than-expected fiscal first-quarter earnings in late May, supported by demand for its AI-powered products, including Agentforce.
The company said it closed 98 deals worth more than $1 million in annual contract value during the quarter.
Publicly disclosed Agentforce customers include PepsiCo, Falabella and Singapore Airlines.
However, Salesforce's second-quarter revenue guidance came in slightly below Wall Street expectations, raising concerns that rapidly advancing AI products from rivals such as OpenAI and Anthropic continue to pressure demand for enterprise software.
KeyBanc noted that it had previously pushed back against negative sentiment surrounding software-as-a-service companies, highlighting the advantages that incumbent platforms such as Salesforce possess.
However, the firm's latest customer checks prompted it to revise its view.
On Wednesday, Salesforce announced that the US Air Force 441st Vehicle Support Chain Operations Squadron (VSCOS) had begun using the company's Missionforce National Security platform to manage a fleet of more than 84,000 vehicles across nearly 389 locations.
Despite Thursday's decline, Wall Street sentiment remains broadly positive.
More than 70% of analysts covering Salesforce rate the stock a Buy, with an average price target of $241.08, implying roughly 45% upside from Wednesday's closing price of $166.58.
Still, Salesforce has struggled this year. The stock has fallen 35% in 2026.
Salesforce uvedl, že Agentforce ARR vzrostl meziročně o 205 % na 1,2 miliardy USD a AI a Data ARR se více než ztrojnásobily na 3,4 miliardy USD. Výnosy ve 1. čtvrtletí fiskálního roku 2027 stouply o 13,3 %.
Key Takeaways CRM's 5.8% drop trails industry gains as AI, interest rates, inflation and geopolitics weigh on software.Salesforce's Agentforce ARR surged 205% to $1.2B, while AI and Data ARR more than tripled to $3.4B.Salesforce expects 10-11% Q2 revenue growth and about 11% for FY27, while valuation looks cheaper. Salesforce Inc. (CRM - Free Report) shares have declined 5.8% over the past three months, underperforming the Zacks Internet – Software industry’s 5.7% gain. While the weak performance may concern investors, Salesforce is far from being the only software stock under pressure.
Several enterprise software names, including SAP SE (SAP - Free Report) , Adobe Inc. (ADBE - Free Report) and Workiva Inc. (WK - Free Report) , have also struggled during the same period. SAP, Adobe and Workiva have fallen 5.1%, 8.7% and 9.9%, respectively. The broad-based weakness suggests that investors are reassessing the software sector rather than losing confidence in Salesforce alone.
Salesforce 3-Month Price Return Performance
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
The biggest overhang is the rapid rise of artificial intelligence, particularly agentic AI. These AI systems can automate complex business tasks with minimal human intervention, prompting investors to question whether the traditional software-as-a-service (SaaS) pricing model, which largely depends on per-user subscriptions, could face pressure over time. If enterprises eventually require fewer software users, subscription growth could slow across the industry.
At the same time, software companies continue to deal with a difficult macroeconomic backdrop. Higher interest rates, persistent inflation and geopolitical uncertainty have made businesses more cautious about technology spending. Many enterprises are taking longer to approve large software purchases, resulting in extended sales cycles across the industry.
Salesforce is naturally exposed to these trends because most of its revenues come from enterprise customers. Slower IT spending could delay new customer wins and reduce expansion opportunities. However, the recent pullback appears to reflect broader market concerns rather than any meaningful deterioration in Salesforce's business.
Salesforce Is Becoming More Than a CRM CompanySalesforce remains the global leader in customer relationship management software, according to Gartner. However, the company is no longer relying solely on its customer relationship management software for growth. It is transforming into a broader enterprise AI platform by combining customer data, collaboration tools and AI-powered automation.
This strategy has been built through both large and small acquisitions. Slack strengthened Salesforce's collaboration platform, and Informatica expanded its data management capabilities, while newer acquisitions such as Doti AI and Spindle AI are enhancing its AI offerings.
The company's biggest growth engine today is Agentforce. In the first quarter of fiscal 2027, Agentforce’s annual recurring revenues (ARR) surged 205% year over year to $1.2 billion, highlighting strong customer demand for Salesforce's AI agents.
The momentum extends beyond Agentforce. Combined AI and Data ARR, including Agentforce, Data 360 and Informatica Cloud, reached $3.4 billion in the first quarter, more than tripling from the year-ago period. Nearly half of Agentforce and Data 360 bookings came from existing customers, showing that Salesforce is successfully expanding relationships within its large installed customer base.
That matters because selling more products to existing customers is typically more profitable than acquiring new ones. It also demonstrates that enterprises are willing to spend more on Salesforce's AI platform despite the uncertain economic environment.
CRM’s Revenue Growth Shows Signs of ImprovementOne of the biggest investor concerns has been Salesforce's slowing growth. As the company became larger, revenue growth naturally moderated from the high-growth rates seen several years ago, leading many investors to believe Salesforce had entered a mature phase.
Recent results paint a more encouraging picture. First-quarter fiscal 2027 revenues increased 13.3% year over year, marking a noticeable acceleration from recent quarters. While Salesforce is still way behind its earlier hypergrowth phase, double-digit growth remains impressive for a company of its scale.
Management's guidance also reflects confidence in demand. Salesforce expects revenues to grow 10-11% in the fiscal second quarter and approximately 11% for the full fiscal year. Those projections are largely in line with Zacks Consensus Estimates and suggest that growth remains healthy despite a cautious enterprise spending environment.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Salesforce’s Valuation Leaves Room for UpsideThe recent share price weakness has also made Salesforce's valuation more attractive. CRM currently trades at a forward 12-month price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 11.26, well below the industry average of 26.32.
Salesforce Forward 12-Month P/E Ratio
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Compared with peers, Salesforce also appears reasonably valued. SAP and Workiva trade at forward P/E multiples of 17.74 and 16.24, respectively, while Adobe trades at 8.36 times forward earnings. Although Adobe is cheaper, Salesforce's valuation looks attractive considering its improving growth profile and expanding AI business.
Final Thoughts: CRM Stock Seems Worth HoldingSalesforce still faces legitimate challenges. The software industry is adjusting to the rise of AI, enterprise customers remain cautious about spending, and macroeconomic uncertainty could continue to weigh on near-term demand.
However, the recent decline appears to reflect investor sentiment more than weakening fundamentals. Salesforce is rapidly building one of the industry's strongest enterprise AI platforms and is showing early signs of reaccelerating revenue growth. At the same time, its expanding AI ecosystem is creating new monetization opportunities while strengthening customer relationships.
With the stock trading at a meaningful discount to the broader software industry, much of the near-term uncertainty already appears to be reflected in the valuation. While volatility may persist, the company's long-term growth story remains intact. For existing investors, holding the stock continues to look like the more sensible strategy than selling into the recent weakness.
Salesforce carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Salesforce uvedl, že kombinované roční opakované tržby z AI a dat v 1. čtvrtletí fiskálního roku 2027 vzrostly o 200 % na 3,4 miliardy USD. Firma zároveň zvýšila dolní hranici výhledu tržeb pro fiskální rok 2027 na 45,9–46,2 miliardy USD.
Key Takeaways Data 360 is becoming a key growth driver for Salesforce as enterprises invest more in AI and connected data.CRM's combined AI and data ARR surged 200% YoY to $3.4 billion in the first quarter of fiscal 2027.Informatica fortifies Salesforce's Data 360 with better integration, governance and management capabilities. Salesforce, Inc. (CRM - Free Report) is strengthening its artificial intelligence (AI) strategy by expanding Data 360, its unified data platform that helps businesses connect customer information across applications. As enterprises invest more in AI, high-quality and connected data has become essential, making Data 360 an increasingly important growth driver for Salesforce in fiscal 2027.
The platform is benefiting from the company’s broader AI initiatives, especially Agentforce. During the first quarter of fiscal 2027, Salesforce reported that combined AI and data annual recurring revenues (ARR), including Agentforce, Data 360 and Informatica Cloud, reached $3.4 billion. This reflects a whopping 200% year-over-year surge. The company also noted that 50% of Agentforce and Data 360 bookings came from existing customers expanding their spending, highlighting strong cross-selling opportunities within its installed customer base.
The recently completed Informatica acquisition further strengthens Salesforce’s Data 360 by improving data integration, governance and management capabilities. Management expects the combination to help customers move AI projects from pilot stages to enterprise-wide deployment, creating additional revenue opportunities. The company also stated that Informatica contributed to first-quarter revenue outperformance and that integration synergies are already emerging.
Salesforce’s financial performance reflects this momentum. First-quarter fiscal 2027 revenues increased 13% year over year to $11.13 billion, while current remaining performance obligations (cRPO) climbed about 14% to $33.6 billion. Management also raised the lower end of its fiscal 2027 revenue guidance to $45.9-$46.2 billion from $45.8-$46.2 billion projected earlier.
With enterprises increasingly linking AI success to trusted data, Data 360 is becoming a key differentiator for Salesforce. Continued adoption, combined with deeper customer expansion and AI demand, could support stronger revenue growth throughout fiscal 2027 and beyond. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for fiscal 2027 revenues is currently pegged at $46.09 billion, indicating a year-over-year increase of approximately 11%.
How Do Rivals Fare Against CRM in AI Enterprise Space?Two major competitors of Salesforce in the AI-powered enterprise software market are Microsoft Corporation (MSFT - Free Report) and Oracle Corporation (ORCL - Free Report) . Both are aggressively investing in AI to capture enterprise spending.
Microsoft is leveraging its strong position in cloud computing and business software through Dynamics 365 and its partnership with OpenAI. In the third quarter of fiscal 2026, Microsoft’s Azure and other cloud services revenues grew 40% year over year, while its AI business surpassed an annual revenue run rate of $37 billion, surging 123% year over year.
The company continues to embed AI copilots across its software portfolio, helping customers automate sales, service and workflow processes. Microsoft’s massive installed base of Office and Azure customers provides a strong channel for AI adoption, making it a formidable competitor to Salesforce’s Agentforce platform.
Oracle is also strengthening its AI capabilities through Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) and Fusion applications. In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026, Oracle’s total cloud revenues increased 47% year over year to $9.9 billion. OCI revenues surged 93% to $5.8 billion, reflecting strong demand for AI workloads and enterprise applications.
Oracle is integrating AI agents across its ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning), customer experience and database products, allowing customers to automate business functions. Its growing cloud business and deep enterprise relationships position Oracle as a key challenger as companies increase spending on AI-driven software solutions.
Salesforce’s Price Performance, Valuation and EstimatesShares of Salesforce have plunged 38.4% year to date, while the Zacks Internet – Software industry has fallen 12.8%.
Salesforce YTD Price Return Performance
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
From a valuation standpoint, CRM trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 11.11, significantly below the industry’s average of 25.65.
Salesforce Forward 12-Month P/E Ratio
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Salesforce’s fiscal 2027 and 2028 earnings implies a year-over-year increase of approximately 12.8% and 9.7%, respectively. Estimates for fiscal 2027 and 2028 have remained unchanged over the past 30 days.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Salesforce currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Salesforce koupí Fin za 3,6 miliardy USD, aby urychlil přechod na AI model založený na výsledcích a využití. Fin už má autonomní řešení s mírou vyřešení 76 % bez zásahu člověka.
Like virtually all software stocks, enterprise software-as-a-service (SaaS) giant Salesforce (CRM +5.41%) has been hit hard this year. Shares are down a stunning 42% on the year and now trade just slightly higher than 10 times this year's adjusted (non-GAAP) earnings per share guidance.
The decline is not unique to Salesforce, though; the entire software sector has been decimated due to fears over artificial intelligence's new ability to code as well as the best human engineers.
Software bulls would say that artificial intelligence (AI) could actually benefit certain software companies as long as they can pivot from a subscription model to a usage- or outcome-based model.
On that note, Salesforce just made an acquisition that has actually already made this transition and is now growing at triple-digit rates. Given that Salesforce needs to do the same, this acquisition isn't just about the acquiree's revenue and profits but also about the capabilities it could bring to the whole organization.
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What is Fin, and why did Salesforce buy it? On June 15, Salesforce announced it was buying customer service software company Fin, formerly known as Intercom, for $3.6 billion.
Some may think that Salesforce just acquired another "me too" customer service software suite. But Fin has proven itself to be more than that. When OpenAI released ChatGPT back in late 2022, Intercom founders Eoghan McCabe and Des Traynor went all in on artificial intelligence.
McCabe had a relationship with OpenAI even before ChatGPT debuted, and he was quick to introduce its new AI-powered software in early 2023. At first, the software was dedicated to helping customer service agents via automated summaries and inbox improvements. But when GPT-4 came out, Intercom decided to develop a fully customer-facing autonomous customer service agent called Fin and even renamed the company after it.
Fin has evolved to model-building and outcome pricing With years of expertise in customer service software and a strong focus in this area, Fin appears to have married its proprietary knowledge with the capabilities of new language models, making it a true, fully autonomous customer service agent.
At first, Fin used either OpenAI's ChatGPT or Anthropic's Claude as the underlying intelligence, then incorporated Fin's proprietary data and expertise to understand the complexities of a customer service call. When Fin launched, it resolved about 25% of customer service interactions. By May 2025, that had increased to 56%. Today, Fin's average resolution rate without human intervention averages 76%.
Image source: Getty Images.
What's really exciting about Fin is that in March, it unveiled its own proprietary model called Apex 1.0. So, whereas Fin was previously dependent on external large language models, it now has its own proprietary one built by Fin's 60-person AI technology team. Using its own vertical model specifically developed for customer service, Fin claims it's the highest-performing customer service model on the market, with faster time to first token and lower hallucinations than the large general models.
Just as important is that Fin has already transitioned to an outcome-based pricing model, where the customer pays only for fully automated customer service resolutions. That has resulted in reaccelerating growth for Fin, which saw its agentic annual recurring revenue (ARR) reach around $100 million and grow at 350% at the time of the transaction. Fin also had some legacy software ARR of around $300 million, bringing the total to $400 million. So, Salesforce is paying about 9 times sales.
But Salesforce is buying a lot more than that Of course, Salesforce isn't just buying Fin's growing ARR. Rather, it's buying a team of AI technologists who have already made the exact transition Salesforce needs to make -- from a recurring, subscription-based, human-driven software business to an outcome- or usage-based agentic AI software business powered by its own internally developed models.
The trepidation around that transition is why Salesforce has fallen to an extremely low valuation of just 10 times this year's earnings guidance. However, if Fin and Fin's team can help successfully deploy AI agentic capabilities across Salesforce's vast, far-reaching enterprise, that could very well ensure Salesforce's pivot is a success.
And if that happens, the stock has tremendous recovery potential from its current depressed valuation.
Salesforce v 1. čtvrtletí zvýšil tržby o 13,3 % na 11,13 miliardy USD a zvedl celoroční výhled tržeb na 45,9–46,2 miliardy USD. Agentforce ARR navíc překonal 1 miliardu USD.
A month has gone by since the last earnings report for Salesforce (CRM - Free Report) . Shares have lost about 14.8% in that time frame, underperforming the S&P 500.
Will the recent negative trend continue leading up to its next earnings release, or is Salesforce due for a breakout? Before we dive into how investors and analysts have reacted as of late, let's take a quick look at the latest earnings report in order to get a better handle on the important catalysts.
CRM Q1 Earnings Top Estimates, Revenues Rise Y/Y on ARR MilestoneSalesforce delivered a solid first-quarter fiscal 2027 non-GAAP earnings of $3.88 per share, up 50.4% year over year. The bottom line beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 24.4%.
Revenues rose 13.3% year over year to $11.13 billion and exceeded the consensus mark by 0.68%. Results reflected continued customer demand for Salesforce’s agentic offerings, with Agentforce ARR surpassing the $1 billion milestone.
Salesforce’s Q1 Performance in DetailSubscription and support revenues (95.1% of total revenues) increased 13.9% year over year to $10.59 billion, accounting for the bulk of total revenues. Professional services and other revenues (4.9% of total revenues) totaled $540 million, indicating relatively stable services activity during the quarter.
Within the updated revenue disclosure framework, Agentforce Apps revenue was $6.91 billion, while Data 360, Headless Platform and Other contributed $3.68 billion. Regionally, the Americas (65% of total revenues) generated revenues of $7.23 billion and grew 11.8% year over year. Europe (24.7% of total revenues) delivered revenues of $2.75 billion, reflecting year-over-year growth of 17.8%, while Asia Pacific (10.25 of total revenues) contributed revenues of $1.15 billion, up 12% year over year.
Profitability also improved. Non-GAAP operating income totaled $3.87 billion, up 22% from the year-ago quarter’s $3.17 billion. Moreover, the non-GAAP operating margin expanded 250 basis points to 34.8%, supported by operating leverage and disciplined spending. Management emphasized productivity gains from the internal adoption of AI tooling, even as it continued to invest in go-to-market capacity.
Salesforce’s Balance Sheet & Other DetailsSalesforce exited the first quarter with cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities of $11.83 billion, up from $9.57 billion at the end of the previous quarter. CRM generated an operating cash flow of $6.70 billion and a free cash flow of $6.56 billion in the first quarter.
As of April 30, the current remaining performance obligation (CRPO) was $33.6 billion, up 13.5% year over year. The company returned $27.5 billion to shareholders during the quarter, including $27.1 billion in share repurchases and $365 million in dividends. CRM also launched a $25 billion accelerated share repurchase program, with an upfront delivery of 103 million shares, which management said boosted both GAAP and non-GAAP per-share results in the quarter.
Salesforce Lifts FY27 Revenue OutlookLooking ahead, Salesforce raised the midpoint of its fiscal 2027 revenue outlook to $45.9-$46.2 billion. The company reiterated non-GAAP operating margin guidance of 34.3%, reflecting higher restructuring.
For the second quarter, Salesforce expects revenues of $11.27-$11.35 billion and non-GAAP earnings of $3.25-$3.27 per share.
Management expects momentum in Agentforce, Data 360 and Slack to continue, while noting that Marketing and Commerce weakness, along with softer Tableau bookings and renewals, remains a key item to watch.
How Have Estimates Been Moving Since Then?In the past month, investors have witnessed a upward trend in estimates review.
VGM ScoresCurrently, Salesforce has a nice Growth Score of B, a grade with the same score on the momentum front. Following the exact same course, the stock was allocated a score of B on the value side, putting it in the second quintile for this investment strategy.
Overall, the stock has an aggregate VGM Score of A. If you aren't focused on one strategy, this score is the one you should be interested in.
OutlookEstimates have been broadly trending upward for the stock, and the magnitude of these revisions looks promising. Interestingly, Salesforce has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). We expect an in-line return from the stock in the next few months.
Akcie Salesforce letos klesly asi o 40 % na nové 52týdenní minimum, přesto tržby vzrostly o 13 % na 11,1 miliardy USD. AI a datové produkty přinesly 3,4 miliardy USD ARR a Agentforce přesáhl 1 miliardu USD.
Few of the market's large-cap software names have fallen as hard this year as Salesforce (CRM +2.22%). The stock recently set a fresh 52-week low and is down about 40% year to date, leaving it among the worst performers in enterprise software. What makes the slide unusual is that the underlying business keeps setting records.
The company reported results for its fiscal first quarter of 2027 (the period ended April 30, 2026) in late May, and the numbers were strong. So why does the stock keep falling?
The answer has little to do with the latest quarter and almost everything to do with a single fear: that artificial intelligence (AI) agents will erode the per-seat subscriptions that software companies like Salesforce have long sold. If a handful of agents can do the work of many employees, the worry goes, customers will eventually need fewer paid seats. In addition, there's an overarching fear that AI will increasingly handle what software companies do today.
Image source: Getty Images.
What the latest quarter actually showed The fiscal first-quarter results suggest that fear may be overblown, at least for now. Salesforce's revenue rose 13% year over year to $11.1 billion, though about 4.4 percentage points of that growth came from its recent Informatica acquisition. Stripping that out, organic growth was closer to the high-single-digit pace the company has run at for a while.
More telling, however, was what happened beneath the top line. Salesforce's AI and data products generated $3.4 billion in annual recurring revenue (ARR), up about 200% from a year earlier, and its Agentforce agentic AI offering alone crossed $1 billion in ARR after more than tripling. And rather than shrinking, the seat count in the company's largest products grew.
"Our largest applications, sales and service, saw year-over-year seat growth with humans and agents both expanding on the platform," said Salesforce chief operating and finance officer Robin Washington in the company's fiscal first-quarter earnings call.
That dynamic, with customers paying for more seats rather than fewer even as they adopt automation, sits at the center of the bull case. Salesforce is also leaning hard into new ways to charge for AI, including usage-based pricing and a recent $3.6 billion deal to acquire Fin, an AI customer service platform.
The profit picture looks healthy, too. Salesforce's non-GAAP (adjusted) operating margin reached a record 34.8%, and the company generated $6.6 billion in free cash flow during the quarter. Salesforce also returned $27.5 billion to shareholders, the bulk of it through a $25 billion accelerated share repurchase that was the largest in its history. That buyback shrank the share count by about 10% from a year earlier.
Is the sell-off a buying opportunity? Not everything in the quarter, however, was reassuring. Management pointed to ongoing weakness in the company's commerce and Tableau businesses. Salesforce has also cut staff repeatedly over the past year as it reorganizes around AI. Of course, this can be viewed as both a negative and a positive.
Additionally, investors will need patience. Management is guiding for organic revenue growth to reaccelerate in the back half of the fiscal year -- a recovery investors will have to wait to see.
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153.45
The real problem for the stock recently may have been valuation. Only now is the stock starting to look reasonably priced in light of the risks of technological change that software companies face. After the sell-off, Salesforce trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of about 12, using the midpoint of management's full-year adjusted earnings outlook. For a profitable business still growing revenue at a double-digit rate and expanding its margins while buying back stock aggressively, that is a fairly attractive multiple.
So, is it finally time to buy? I'm staying cautious. The numbers increasingly suggest AI is acting as a catalyst for Salesforce rather than a threat. But the broader uncertainty over how AI will reshape software isn't going away soon, and that overhang could keep a lid on the valuation premium investors are willing to pay for software stocks for years, even ones executing as well as this one.
Overall, buying a small, undersized position here could make sense for investors comfortable with the AI disruption overhang that could plague the stock for years. From there, I'd only build the position into a meaningful stake if the stock falls significantly further. Approaching the stock this way gives investors the flexibility to profit if things go well, and to potentially keep buying a good business at an even better price.
