For decades, it seemed like the sky was the limit for Salesforce (CRM), the cloud-based enterprise software and customer relationship management platform.
The company was founded in 1999 by Marc Benioff, Parker Harris, Dave Moellenhoff, and Frank Dominguez, who built their platform in a tiny apartment on San Francisco’s Telegraph Hill (a closet functioned as their server), proving they could innovate from the get-go.
Salesforce made its product accessible to businesses of all sizes by offering its CRM as a subscription service over the internet (SaaS) rather than as an expensive, locally installed software, which was more common at the time.
As a result, businesses were finally able to integrate their sales, marketing, customer service, and analytics together for a “360-degree” view of their customers — and Salesforce took off.
Since its IPO on June 23, 2004, CRM shares have soared by nearly 2,000%.
According to Benzinga, if an investor had bought $1,000 of CRM stock 20 years ago, those shares would be worth $20,797.11 in March 2026.
But Salesforce’s skies have darkened recently, due to its struggles to prove that its investments in AI are delivering tangible ROI.
In fact, reports have surfaced that company insiders don’t even understand how to use its new technology, let alone explain it to customers.
Rewind to last year, when the turbulence started. On February 26, 2025, Salesforce reported $37.9 billion in fiscal 2025 revenue, which was a 9% increase from the previous fiscal year.
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However, its revenue growth estimates slowed to 8.5%, down from 11% the prior year.
In addition, Salesforce’s margins dropped to 27.2% from 29.4% in 2024. This suggested that the company’s AI investments had added significant costs to the company — without increasing its bottom line.
As a result, CRM shares sold off and have yet to recover: Salesforce ended the year down 20% in 2025.
Salesforce’s turmoil stems from its company-wide shift to “Agentic AI.” Through its Agentforce platform, launched on September 12, 2024, AI agents can take on tasks that were once delegated to people. These agents are considered more intuitive than chatbots, and they need less human oversight, as well.
On the heels of its rollout, Salesforce posted strong quarterly results. CNBC reported that the company had secured 200 deals for the product and thousands more in the pipeline. CRM shares closed at an all-time high of $365.07 on December 4, 2024.
Everyone, it seemed, was aboard the Agentic bandwagon.
But the machine’s efficiencies came at a very human cost.
In January 2025, Benioff told Bloomberg that Salesforce’s AI agents were already doing 50% of the company’s work.
That fall, Benioff went on the Logan Bartlett Show and stated “I need less heads.”
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Salesforce repositioned 4,000 customer service jobs that month and laid off an additional 1,000 marketing employees in early 2026.
But while losing a job feels insurmountable on a personal level, for companies like Salesforce, reduced administrative costs increase AI’s return on investment.
And it isn’t just Salesforce, either; CEOs across the board have felt the heat in proving their AI investments work, Fortune said.
In a January 2026 survey of 3,700 business executives, 61% of CEOs said they were under “increasing pressure” to demonstrate returns on their AI investments.
But Salesforce may have already redeemed itself with its latest earnings report, released on Feb 26, 2026, which touted $800 million in annual recurring revenue for its Agentforce system, and 2.4 billion Agentic work units to date — all of which is proof of enterprise adoption.
CEO Marc Benioff added that Agentic AI “is a tailwind for our business.”
So, is CRM’s long-term growth story likely to continue?
Salesforce certainly thinks so. The fact remains: Salesforce is still one of the largest enterprise software companies in the world, a niche it basically created, and it boasted $38 billion in fiscal 2025 revenue, a $3 billion increase over the year before.
The company has big plans for the future, and dynamic leadership from Benioff could very well make his vision of $60 billion in revenue by 2030 a reality.
“We’re leading the next great transformation in business — the era of the Agentic Enterprise — where AI elevates human potential and accelerates growth,” Benioff said, counting Dell, FedEx, Pandora, PepsiCo, and Williams-Sonoma, Inc. among its users.
In September 2025, the company launched the newest version of its AI enterprise, Agentforce 360, which promises even deeper platform integration. At the same time, Salesforce pledged to invest $15 billion into AI initiatives around San Francisco.
This money will help to establish an AI Incubator Hub and add to workforce development programs.
In addition, on March 16, 2026, Salesforce announced a massive $50 billion share repurchase program, half of which is funded by debt — another bullish sign from the company.
Company histories:
The consensus estimates from analysts compiled by MarketBeat were that this move now makes the stock a “Moderate Buy.”
And with shares trading around 14.7 times forward earnings, many even believe the stock isn’t overhyped but rather undervalued.
Only time will tell, but Salesforce’s transition into an AI-focused platform may also have changed its business model from a high-flying growth story to a profitable, cash-generating enterprise that appeals to those who can patiently wait for artificial intelligence to prove itself in dollars and cents.
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This story was originally published by TheStreet on Mar 20, 2026, where it first appeared in the Investing section. Add TheStreet as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
