HomeAI & Quantum ComputingSalesforce's AI Ambitions Face Crucial Market Test

Salesforce’s AI Ambitions Face Crucial Market Test

The coming week presents a pivotal moment for Salesforce, as the cloud software giant navigates persistent market skepticism despite an aggressive push to dominate the artificial intelligence landscape. With its stock under pressure for months, the company’s flurry of acquisitions aimed at bolstering its “Agentforce” AI platform will face a critical examination when quarterly results are released this Wednesday after the market closes. The central question for investors is whether the rapid-fire strategy is yielding tangible benefits or if broader sector concerns will continue to overshadow progress.

Earnings Report to Serve as Key Benchmark

All eyes will be on the financial report for the fourth quarter and full fiscal year 2026, scheduled for February 25. According to consensus estimates compiled by Zacks, the market expects quarterly earnings per share of $3.03 on revenue of $11.17 billion. For the entire fiscal year, projections point to $11.76 per share in earnings and $41.5 billion in total revenue.

The performance of Agentforce is anticipated to be the primary focus. In the previous quarter, Salesforce reported that Agentforce and Data Cloud together achieved $1.4 billion in annualized recurring revenue (ARR), representing year-over-year growth of 114%. Agentforce alone reached $540 million in ARR, surging by an impressive 330%. Furthermore, the company’s remaining performance obligations stood at $29.4 billion, an 11% increase. A significant data point was that over half of all Agentforce bookings originated from expansions within the existing customer base, indicating robust demand beyond just new client acquisition.

Acquisition Spree Fuels AI Platform Expansion

Salesforce’s management is aggressively advancing its AI roadmap through a notable series of purchases. Just this week, the company agreed to acquire Momentum, a provider of a “Conversational Insights” and revenue orchestration platform. Its technology captures and analyzes unstructured data from third-party tools like Zoom and Google Meet, transforming raw meeting audio into structured intelligence. This intelligence can then trigger automated workflows within the Salesforce ecosystem.

The plan involves integrating Momentum’s “universal ingestion engine” into Agentforce 360 and the Slackbot. According to Chief Product Officer Steve Fisher, this accelerates the development timeline by funneling the “long” data stream from conversation content directly into the platform. The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of fiscal 2027, though financial terms were not disclosed.

This pattern is striking: Momentum marks the tenth acquisition in just six months and the second already in February. Previously, Salesforce agreed to purchase Cimulate, a provider of agent-based commerce and product search tools. The common thread is clear: these acquisitions predominantly aim to expand the functional breadth and capabilities of the Agentforce platform.

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Persistent Market Skepticism Weighs on Shares

Despite this operational offensive, Salesforce’s stock remains under pressure. Analysts point to a broader sell-off in the software sector driven by uncertainty from AI disruption and risks associated with private credit markets. This environment has made investors more cautious regarding technology valuations.

This sentiment is reflected in recent analyst actions. Several firms have substantially reduced their price targets, including Citi (lowering its target to $197 from $257) and UBS (cutting to $200 from $260). Oppenheimer (to $275 from $300) and Mizuho (to $280 from $340) also tempered their expectations. The collective message is that even with a fundamentally sound business narrative, valuation parameters are being tightened.

Recent price data underscores the pressure: with a closing price of 157.14 euros last Friday, the shares traded merely 1% above their 52-week low.

Ecosystem Development Complements Strategy

Beyond acquisitions, Salesforce is also fostering its partner ecosystem. In a related development, GoDaddy announced an integration with Salesforce’s MuleSoft Agent Fabric. Through GoDaddy’s “Agent Name Service,” organizations will be able to discover AI agents and verify their identities, a feature designed as a safeguard against unauthorized agents within corporate systems.

Wednesday’s earnings release will ultimately provide a verifiable check on two key fronts: whether the strong Agentforce growth and pipeline metrics from Q3 were sustained in the final quarter, and if the rapid acquisition strategy is demonstrably accelerating the development of the AI platform.

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