Salesforce receives double blow over an AI product
Salesforce receives double blow over an AI product.
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Salesforce ( CRM ) rarely draws a downgrade from two research firms at once. This week it did.
On Thursday, July 9 , KeyBanc Capital Markets and Bernstein downgraded Salesforce to a Hold . The stock fell roughly 3% to 4% at its low before steadying the next day.
However, what matters beyond the price drop is why both firms stepped back at the same time, and what that means for anyone who owns the stock.
KeyBanc moved Salesforce to Sector Weight from Overweight . Bernstein also downgraded the stock to Sector Weight from Outperform , according to Investing.com .
Both firms had the same concern. The adoption of Agentforce , the company's flagship AI agent platform, is progressing more slowly than the headline numbers suggest.
According to Benzinga , KeyBanc analyst Jackson Ader was blunt, saying the only real reason to buy the stock now is that it's cheap.
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Ader's team kept noting the same thing: customer data is not organized enough for real AI work , and Agentforce "just isn't there" yet as a product, TipRanks reported.
A recent survey of chief information officers, the executives who control software budgets, deepened the worry.
More of them plan to trim Salesforce spending over the next year than raise it. The downgrades quickly spread caution across other software names, Barron 's noted.
Agentforce is Salesforce's wager that AI agents, software that carries out tasks on its own instead of just answering questions, will power its next decade of growth .
Salesforce has sold its software the same way for 25 years, charging per user , or "per seat."
If agents handle work people used to do, customers may need fewer seats , which could shrink revenue rather than grow it.
The company is now trying to charge for the work its agents complete instead of for headcount, though that model is still unproven at scale.
Related: Salesforce bets another $1 billion despite AI spending cratering its stock
The analyst checks matter because they test the changes the company wants to make against reality.
