Salesforce’s AI Bet Starts to Pay Off

Salesforce is trying to rewrite the narrative around its AI strategy, and this quarter gave it a little more room to do that. The company raised both its fiscal 2026 revenue and profit forecasts, saying demand for its agentic AI products is finally turning into something with a bit more oomph than just curiosity. That alone bumped up the stock a bit in after-hours trading.

Benioff confident in AI business as a growth lever for company

Marc Benioff crowed his message loud and clear: the AI business is becoming a real growth engine. 

“Our Agentforce and Data 360 products are the momentum drivers, hitting nearly $1.4 billion in ARR—an explosive 114% year-over-year gain,” said Benioff. “We now have over 9,500 paid Agentforce deals and 3.2 trillion tokens processed, underscoring our leadership in building the Agentic Enterprise and driving real outcomes.”

This is a pretty major jump from where Agentforce was a year ago.

From “let’s try this” to “okay, we’re buying it”

A big theme across the earnings call was that customers are finally moving out of the “kick the tires” stage with AI agents. Rebecca Wettemann summed it up nicely, saying, “Raising guidance for year-end shows the confidence it has in pipeline and in bringing customers that are Agentforce experimenters today into Agentforce buyers in the near future.”

Salesforce is also leaning pretty heavily on partners to meet demand. Consulting powerhouses like Accenture, Deloitte, and PwC are co-selling alongside Salesforce to help customers figure out what becoming an “agentic enterprise” actually looks like in practice.

And that “multiplier effect” Salesforce keeps talking about is actually showing up. Existing customers are expanding faster, deals are getting larger, and Salesforce has now closed more than 9,500 paid Agentforce deals. 

What really stands out is that half of all bookings for Agentforce and Data 360 came from customers already using Salesforce. Proof that once people start experimenting with the AI tools, they tend to double down.

The financial story: 2025 success creates higher 2026 predictions 

The quarter was fairly straightforward: $10.3 billion in revenue and adjusted earnings that did a little better than expected. The more interesting part is where Salesforce thinks things are headed. 

Fiscal 2026 revenue is now estimated at $41.45 to $41.55 billion, with a higher adjusted EPS outlook to go with it. And with remaining performance obligations up 11 percent to $29.4 billion, the pipeline finally looks like something investors don’t have to squint at.

Benioff is still trying to counter the idea that AI undermines Salesforce’s traditional business. “There was a false narrative that somehow the core is in jeopardy because of these large language models,” he said. In his view, AI is making Salesforce stickier, not shakier.

Investors not fully sold yet

Even with better numbers, Salesforce still has its work cut out for it to convince a super-skeptical market that AI will turn into real, durable revenue. But Benioff isn’t backing down. “We’re uniquely positioned for this new era,” he said.

For now, the raised outlook and accelerating Agentforce momentum at least give him a stronger footing as he keeps making that case.

And this all lines up with Salesforce’s recent move into IT support with Agentforce IT Service. That launch showed how the company is pushing agentic AI deeper into everyday workflows, not just sales and service. Salesforce clearly wants Agentforce everywhere, and customers are finally starting to meet them there.