Here's Why Salesforce Stock Soared Today
Key Points
Demand for Salesforce's AI offerings is booming.
The software titan says artificial intelligence (AI) is more of an opportunity than a threat.
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Shares of Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) surged on Thursday after the cloud-based customer relationship management platform's quarterly results helped to calm investors' fears of a forthcoming "SaaSpocalypse."
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The doomsayers have it wrong
"This nonsense of this SaaSpocalypse, I think it is time for it to stop," CEO Marc Benioff said during Salesforce's earnings call.
Benioff is referring to concerns that the relentless advances in artificial intelligence (AI) would reduce the need for software sold on a subscription basis. The theory was that companies that relied on this so-called software-as-a-service (SaaS) business model would rapidly cede revenue to AI-powered competitors and see their pricing power erode.
"We've been hearing about this for the last two quarters, these dire predictions about the end of software and how the [AI] models eat everything, but none of them have come true for us," he said.
Salesforce's financial results support Benioff's statements. The software leader's revenue rose 11% year over year to $11.3 billion in its fiscal 2027 second quarter, which ended on July 31.
"AI is delivering value across every layer of our platform," Benioff said. "We're seeing incredible demand for our AI and data products, with ARR [annual recurring revenue] about to cross $4 billion."
The company's Agentforce offering, which helps customers create AI agents to perform a range of business tasks, is growing particularly fast. Agentforce ARR increased over 240% to $1.5 billion.
All told, Salesforce's net income climbed to $3.5 billion, or $4.29 per share, from $1.9 billion, or $1.96 per share, in the prior-year quarter, driven by a $2.6 billion gain on its investment in leading AI model developer Anthropic.
An intriguing new partnership
Salesforce is teaming up with Anthropic to launch Claudeforce, which combines the reasoning of Anthropic's highly regarded Claude models with Salesforce's trusted data security and business workflows.
"Through this partnership, companies can point Claude at the customer information and business context that they've been building in Salesforce for decades, and use it to actually run and grow their businesses," Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said.
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Joe Tenebruso has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Salesforce. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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