Salesforce’s critics feared generative AI would hollow out its subscription-software model; Marc Benioff and the company’s backers now argue AI is becoming an extension of the CRM giant instead. The latest rally has sharpened that divide, even as forecasts leave little room for complacency.

For much of the past year, the market treated Salesforce as a prime casualty of the so-called SaaSpocalypse. Its shares fell 21% last year and continued to lag through much of 2026, as investors worried that OpenAI and Anthropic tools would let customers build their own business software. The selling culminated in a 14-day losing streak, with the stock bottoming near $150 on June 22—more than 40% down for the year.¹

Then came Wednesday’s earnings. Salesforce reported quarterly revenue growth of 11%, above expectations, and forecast roughly 12% growth at the midpoint for the current period. More importantly for the AI debate, annualized revenue from Agentforce climbed 240% to more than $1.5 billion.²

On Thursday, shares surged about 21% to 23%, their best day since 2020. The catalyst was not only the beat-and-raise report but also Claudeforce, Salesforce’s new tie-up with Anthropic. The plug-in is designed to let Claude work with Salesforce data and perform tasks including drafting emails and updating records. Benioff’s rebuttal was blunt: “Frontier models depend on CRM. They don’t replace it.”²

Jim Cramer sees the partnership as a turning point precisely because Anthropic had helped fuel investors’ earlier fears. “The worst is over,” he said, lifting his Salesforce target from $250 to $300 and arguing the company’s long-promised reacceleration is arriving.¹

Yet the bullish case is not a declaration of runaway growth. While William Blair’s Arjun Bhatia sees a plausible path to 15% growth, consensus estimates call for 11% this fiscal year and about 10% in each of the following two years. Salesforce has won back confidence; it still has to prove that AI can sustain it.²