"Powerful future revenue stream": Salesforce gave strong outlook thanks to AI agents

Salesforce, a developer of CRM systems and software for marketers, gave a revenue forecast for the current quarter that exceeded Wall Street's expectations. The company is banking on the advancement of its AgentForce product, an artificial intelligence that can perform routine tasks in place of humans. The strong outlook suggests that the enterprise software developer is succeeding in convincing customers to buy AI-based solutions, Bloomberg notes.

CRM system developer Salesforce expects revenue in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026, which ends in January, to be between $11.13 billion and $11.23 billion, with analysts' average forecast at $10.9 billion, Bloomberg writes.

The company also predicted that by the end of the fiscal year, current remaining performance obligations (CRPO) will grow by about 15%, while analysts predicted a growth of only 10%. By comparison, this figure added 11% year-over-year last quarter. This indicates a "strong pipeline of future revenue," Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said in a statement.

The revenue forecast takes into account a 3 percentage point contribution from Informatica, the data integration software maker that Salesforce bought last month for $8 billion. Informatica's contribution to CRPO would be 4 p.p.

In the post-market on Wednesday after the publication of the statements Salesforce securities rose at the moment by about 9%, but then the pace slowed down to about 2%. In the main trading on December 3, the securities rose 1.7% to $238.7.

The world's largest CRM software vendor is actively promoting the use of Agentforce, an AI tool that can perform tasks like lead generation and customer service without human intervention. Benioff emphasized the growing popularity of AI solutions in a press release, stating, "Our Agentforce and [data analytics tool] Data 360 are the main drivers of growth right now."

Agentforce was launched last year, and since then Salesforce has signed more than 9,500 paid contracts: a figure that has more than doubled from the 6,000 the company reported in the previous quarter. Salesforce said annual revenue from the segment, which includes AI tools and data organization solutions, was $1.4 billion for the third quarter ended Oct. 31.

But so far, use of these solutions has been largely limited to pilot projects - also because of confusing pricing and unstructured data at clients, Bloomberg wrote, citing a note by TD Cowen analyst Derrick Wood published ahead of the reports.

Salesforce's positive outlook on agent AI sales contrasts with a report from The Information that several divisions of tech giant Microsoft have lowered their sales growth forecasts for a number of AI products because customers are slow to adopt agent-based AI. Microsoft, however, has denied this.

Salesforce's revenue rose 8.6% to $10.3 billion in the third quarter of fiscal 2026, with adjusted earnings of $3.25 per share. According to Bloomberg, revenue met analysts' expectations and earnings came in above estimates, with Wall Street consensus at $2.86 per share. CRPO totaled $29.4 billion, while analysts expected $29.1 billion.

Wall Street is betting on continued growth in the CRM systems developer's stock: the consensus target price of analysts tracking the company's shares is $326.6, up nearly 37% from the closing price on Dec. 3. At the same time, the majority of analysts (43 out of 55) advise buying Salesforce shares, while only one recommends selling.

Salesforce's current stock valuation looks undervalued and could be of interest to long-term investors, ClearBridge Investments senior analyst Hilary Frisch said before the report. Citi analyst Tyler Radke noted in November that real-world adoption of Agentforce remains limited for now.

This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor