Why Salesforce Plunged Over 40% in the First Half of 2026

Shares of enterprise software giant Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) 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.

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.

Billy Duberstein and/or his clients have positions in Salesforce. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Salesforce and Zoom Communications. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.