AI business accelerates but revenue inflection point still needs confirmation. Wall Street holds a cautious but optimistic outlook on Salesforce, Inc. (CRM.US).

Salesforce, Inc. (CRM.US) continues to maintain double-digit growth in its latest financial report, with the commercialization progress of its flagship artificial intelligence product Agentforce attracting market attention. However, while several Wall Street investment banks are positive about the momentum of the AI business, they remain cautious about whether the overall revenue growth of the company will significantly rebound. The financial report shows that Salesforce, Inc. had a strong performance in the fourth quarter, with the Agentforce product accelerating in volume. Morgan Stanley analysts pointed out in their report that the annualized recurring revenue (ARR) of Agentforce has reached $800 million, a 169% year-on-year increase; Data 360 ARR has risen to $1 billion; and the number of quarterly transactions for Agentforce exceeded 29,000, a 50% increase compared to the previous quarter. More than 60% of Agentforce and Data 360 orders come from existing customers, indicating a continuous improvement in customer usage depth. However, Morgan Stanley believes that solely relying on the product cycle of Agentforce is not enough to significantly enhance the market valuation of Salesforce, Inc., and investors still hope to see an acceleration in overall revenue growth. Looking at the key remaining performance obligation (cRPO) indicators, if excluding about 3 percentage points of currency exchange rate benefits and about 4 percentage points of contribution from the Informatica acquisition, the company's organic, on a fixed exchange rate basis, cRPO growth is about 9%, which only meets the company's previous guidance and falls below the somewhat investors' expectations of an over-performance. Morgan Stanley maintains an "overweight" rating on the stock with a target price of $287. JPMorgan also maintains an "overweight" rating, but lowers the target price from $365 to $320. The bank points out that as Salesforce, Inc. shifts towards a consumption-based Flex Credits model, the corresponding relationship between traditional cRPO and revenue may be weakened, with about 50% of Agentforce orders in the fourth quarter adopting this model. In addition, the company announced a stock buyback plan of up to $500 billion, and reiterated its goal of achieving a rebound in revenue growth in the second half of the 2027 fiscal year, providing support for medium to long-term growth. On the other hand, some institutions are more cautious. Wells Fargo & Company maintains a "neutral" rating and lowers the target price to $210, believing that the highlights of Agentforce are outweighed by the overall underperformance, and they need to wait for clearer signals of growth recovery. Citigroup research, on the other hand, reiterates a "neutral" rating, believing that the company's performance is below expectations at the organic level, with pressure on marketing and e-commerce operations, and AI-related growth is not sufficient to drive overall acceleration. Wedbush continues to be optimistic about the long-term prospects of Salesforce, Inc., maintaining an "outperform" rating but lowering the target price from $375 to $325. The bank believes that the pipeline for Agentforce is still strengthening, and Salesforce, Inc. is still expected to gradually move towards its revenue target of $63 billion by 2030, while emphasizing that the current concerns about AI impact triggering a retreat in the enterprise software sector are magnified by the market. It is worth noting that Salesforce, Inc. also announced the launch of a new $500 billion stock buyback plan, replacing all previously unused authorizations. As of the time of writing, Salesforce, Inc. stock has risen over 3%, reaching $198.03.