$Salesforce(CRM.US)

Salesforce: Agentic AI Is Disrupting SaaS, But Not Killing It

The market fears that agentic AI will commoditise SaaS applications by allowing AI agents to interact directly with enterprise data. While this threatens seat-based pricing models, I believe Salesforce remains one of the best-positioned incumbents to survive and potentially benefit. Salesforce generated US$41.5bn revenue in FY2026, holds US$72.4bn of remaining performance obligations (RPO), and produced US$14.4bn of free cash flow—evidence of a deeply embedded enterprise platform. (Salesforce⁠)

More importantly, Salesforce is rapidly shifting from CRM software to AI infrastructure. Agentforce ARR reached US$800m in FY2026 and exceeded US$1.2bn by 1Q27, while Agentforce and Data Cloud ARR surpassed US$3.4bn, growing more than 200% YoY. The company has also closed over 29,000 Agentforce deals. (Salesforce⁠)

The acquisitions of Informatica (US$8bn) and Fin (US$3.6bn) are not knee-jerk responses. Informatica strengthens data governance and metadata management—the foundation AI agents require to operate safely—while Fin adds proven AI customer-service automation capabilities. (Salesforce Investor Relations⁠)

The key risk is execution. Investors worry Salesforce is assembling a patchwork of acquisitions rather than a unified platform, reflected by the stock’s sharp decline in 2026. (MarketWatch⁠)

My view: Agentic AI will compress traditional SaaS valuations, but Salesforce’s future lies in becoming the system of record, data layer, and orchestration platform for enterprise AI. If AI agents become the interface, Salesforce intends to own the infrastructure underneath.