Mexico City – Salesforce forecast second-quarter revenue below Wall Street estimates on May 27, as concerns over AI-driven disruption to traditional software demand overshadowed its stronger-than-expected performance in the first quarter.
Shares of the business software provider ended down 0.6 per cent in volatile extended trading. They have dropped nearly 33 per cent so far in 2026, after falling more than 20 per cent in 2025. The drop mirrors that of other application software companies such as ServiceNow and Adobe.
Like its peers, Salesforce is contending with growing investor concerns that rapidly evolving AI tools could pull enterprise clients away from traditional software by taking over tasks once done by their products.
Advanced coding tools by Anthropic and OpenAI have driven a recent sell-off in software stocks, ushering in what Wall Street is calling a “SaaSpocalypse” – a term reflecting the gloom around software-as-a-service companies.
Salesforce expects second-quarter revenue to be between US$11.27 billion (S$14.4 billion) and US$11.35 billion, below analysts’ average estimate of US$11.36 billion, according to data compiled by LSEG.
“The next few quarters will be critical to Salesforce, both to show the value its core customers are getting from per-seat licenses and its Agentforce customers are getting from AI,” said Rebecca Wettemann, chief executive officer of industry analyst firm Valoir.
Salesforce is trying to reinvent itself as an AI-agent company through its Agentforce, its own AI tool that is meant to handle tasks such as customer service without human oversight. Still, the product’s capabilities don’t always match Salesforce’s marketing, Bloomberg News reported last week.
Agentforce is now on track to contribute US$1.2 billion of annual revenue, up from US$800 million in February. Use of AI models within Salesforce’s platform has more than doubled compared to the prior quarter, the company said.
Customers are getting more comfortable with AI, which is helping to boost the company’s results, executive vice president Mike Spencer said in an interview. “We’re seeing a level of adoption and usage, and that’s anchoring the acceleration.”
The healthy results from Agentforce still aren’t boosting overall numbers, Raimo Lenschow, an analyst at Barclays, wrote in a note. “We are not sure this will be enough to drive a meaningful reaction.”
Earlier this month, the company said it would offer less-detailed information about how much revenue is tied to specific products. It will now report sales growth in two main categories: applications and infrastructure and data. REUTERS, BLOOMBERG
