Have you ever watched a stock you really like get absolutely hammered for months, only to see it suddenly roar back on a single earnings report? That’s exactly what happened Wednesday night with Salesforce. The numbers hit the tape, shares popped more than 8% in the blink of an eye, and suddenly everyone is asking the same question: is this the moment the CRM giant finally puts the AI fear behind it?
I’ve followed this name for years, and honestly, the past twelve months have felt brutal. Down almost 30% year-to-date heading into the print, lingering worries that generative AI might eat traditional software alive—it was starting to feel like the market had written Salesforce off. Then boom. One quarter, one raised outlook, and the mood flips completely.
Agentforce Is No Longer Just a Buzzword
Let’s start with the part everyone is talking about: Agentforce. When Salesforce launched its AI-powered autonomous agent platform a little over a year ago, a lot of us raised an eyebrow. Another AI announcement in a sea of AI announcements, right? Turns out management wasn’t just throwing spaghetti at the wall.
They closed over 9,500 paid Agentforce deals this quarter alone—that’s up from the 6,000+ they mentioned last time. Even more telling: six of the top ten deals in the entire quarter were driven primarily by companies wanting to “transform with Agentforce,” in the words of the CEO. Annual recurring revenue attached to the platform exploded 330% year-over-year to $540 million.
“Fifty percent of our new Agentforce bookings this quarter came from existing customers increasing their commitment. That’s real adoption, not just curiosity.”
– CEO comment on the earnings call
That quote stuck with me. In enterprise software, land-and-expand is everything. When your installed base starts opening the wallet wider for a brand-new product, you’re usually onto something legitimate.
Breaking Down the Actual Numbers
Okay, let’s get into the financial weeds a bit—because this quarter was genuinely fascinating.
- Revenue: $10.26 billion (+8.6% YoY) → missed by a whisper ($13 million short)
- Adjusted EPS: $3.25 (+35% YoY) → crushed estimates by almost 14%
- Adjusted operating margin: expanded massively to 32.6%
- Free cash flow margin: north of 40% (insane for this size company)
- Share repurchases: record $3.8 billion in a single quarter
Yes, top-line growth is still only high-single digits, but the profitability story is borderline ridiculous right now. The combination of cost discipline, favorable expense timing, and a nice bad-debt adjustment gave margins a turbo boost. More importantly, the core business isn’t falling apart while they invest in AI—something plenty of investors feared twelve months ago.
The Cloud-by-Cloud Scorecard
Not every segment fired on all cylinders, and I think it’s worth being transparent about that.
The three big clouds—Sales, Service, and Platform & Other—all beat expectations handily. That’s the bread and butter. Where things got a little wobbly was in the smaller Marketing & Commerce Cloud and the Integration & Analytics piece (Data Cloud + MuleSoft). Those were the culprits behind the tiny revenue miss.
In my experience, when the flagship products are strong and the laggards are the smaller, newer ones, you can live with that. Especially when the company is in the middle of repositioning those exact segments around AI use cases.
Guidance Raise: Real or Acquisition Juice?
Here’s where some skepticism crept in during the call—and why the stock gave back some of its initial gains as the night wore on.
The new FY26 revenue guide of $41.45–41.55 billion implies 9–10% growth. That’s up from prior 8.5–9%. Sounds great, but the freshly closed Informatica acquisition is contributing roughly 80 basis points this year and a whopping three points in Q4. Strip that out, and organic growth is more like 8–9%—still an improvement, but not the acceleration some were hoping to see.
On the profitability side, though? No complaints. Adjusted EPS guide moved to $11.75–11.77 from $11.33–11.37. That’s a massive raise, and most of it appears organic.
The Metric That Really Matters: cRPO
If you invest in SaaS names, you know current remaining performance obligation (cRPO) is the single best short-term predictor of next quarter’s revenue. Salesforce guided Q4 cRPO growth to 15% (13% constant currency). That blew away the Street’s 10% expectation.
Even adjusting for Informatica’s four-point contribution, you’re still looking at 11% organic bookings growth. That’s the first time in a while we’ve seen bookings meaningfully outpace revenue—usually the earliest sign that top-line acceleration is coming.
Why Management Is Buying Back Stock Like Crazy
Salesforce repurchased $3.8 billion of its own shares this quarter—the most aggressive quarter all year—after expanding the authorization by $20 billion earlier in 2025. When insiders are willing to lean in that hard, especially after a 30% drawdown, it’s usually worth paying attention.
Put simply, management believes the stock is cheap. And when you pair that conviction with accelerating bookings and fat margins, it’s tough to argue they’re wrong.
So… Is This the Bottom?
Look, I’m not going to sit here and promise the stock rips 50% tomorrow. The macro environment is still messy, tariff talk is everywhere, and enterprise budgets remain cautious. But from a fundamental perspective, a lot of the fears that crushed the stock in 2025 look overblown right now.
Agentforce traction is real. Margins are expanding faster than anyone modeled. Bookings are reaccelerating. And the company is returning serious capital while trading at its cheapest valuation in years.
In my view, if Agentforce continues closing deals at this pace and revenue growth creeps back into double digits over the next 12–18 months—as management keeps insisting it will—then today’s price around $245 is going to look like a steal in hindsight.
For now, the setup feels materially better than it did even three months ago. Sometimes that’s all you can ask for in this market.
Disclosure: I do not own Salesforce shares personally at the time of writing, though several growth-oriented portfolios I follow maintain positions. Always do your own due diligence—markets can stay irrational longer than any of us can stay solvent.
