Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff Thinks ‘SaaSpocalypse’ Bears Are ‘Dead Wrong’ — Even As CRM Stock Tracks Worst Year Since 2022

• Benioff believes investor fears over AI disruptions rocking software firms are overdone.
• Salesforce shares have declined more than 30% in 2026.
• Still, about three-fourths of analysts recommend ‘Buy’ or higher, per Koyfin.

Salesforce CEO Mark Benioff has given a clear rebuttal amid the ongoing software selloff: the bears have it all wrong.

The chief of the top-tier software player, whose tools help enterprises manage customer relationships, sales, marketing, and support, said that AI is making Salesforce more valuable to its customers, and AI firms or competitors can’t “vibe-code” their own sales-management software to compete with Salesforce on security, compliance and other vital features.

CRM Back Against The Wall? Not Quite

“People think we have our back against the wall when in fact the opportunity has never been greater,” Benioff said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal.

"The software bears are dead wrong. At @Pearson, #Agentforce autonomously handles order statuses, refunds & lost access codes — increasing the percentage of customer questions resolved without any human interaction by 40%, says VP Gabriele Bauman," Benioff reiterated on X.  

"At @PenFed, our Agentforce agent handles password resets & account unlocks for employees — reducing total IT tickets by 40%, says EVP & CIO Shree Reddy. This is the Agentic Enterprise delivering real ROI today — not hype. Agenticware, not Software."

As a key constituent of the software-as-a-service sector, Salesforce has been caught in what traders are cheekily calling the "SaaSpocalypse" — a broad dent in SaaS valuations driven by fears that AI agents like Anthropic's Claude can perform professional tasks cheaper and more effectively than human workers, threatening the traditional per-seat subscription model that underpins the industry. 

CRM shares are down 31% year to date, already worse than last year’s 20% tumble, but still not as bad as the 47% cratering seen in 2022. However, some software peers, such as Atlassian, Workday, Intuit, and Zscaler, have fallen even more sharply.

Sales grew 12% to $11.2 billion in the last quarter, exceeding Wall Street’s expectations, but a soft fiscal first-quarter forecast weighed on the company's sentiment.

CRM CEO Outlines Catalysts

In the Journal report, Benioff outlined a few levers that would push Salesforce out of the slump. First up, the company’s flagship Agentforce platform is finally picking up after a slow start. Launched in late 2024, it is now used by 23,000 of its 150,000 customers to build custom autonomous agents for workflows.

Now, Salesforce is building a new AI platform, code-named Agent Albert, which will be unveiled at the end of the year. The tool – a culmination of a three-year effort – would be able to automatically study its users and take actions on their behalf, according to the report.

Thirdly, Salesforce's investment in Anthropic could come into play. Since 2023, Salesforce has invested more than $300 million in the AI start, which was recently valued at $380 billion and is planning to go public later this year.

In February, Salesforce expanded its integration with Anthropic, allowing its data and tools — starting with Slack and Agentforce 360 — to be accessed directly within Claude, with outputs feeding back into Salesforce workflows.

Retail, Analyst Views On CRM

Although CRM has been one of the most-cited stocks ripe for a software rebound, retail sentiment for the ticker on Stocktwits has been falling since the start of last week and was ‘neutral’ early Monday.

Analysts, however, believe a rebound is likely. Currently, 35 of 46 recommend ‘Buy’ or higher, 10 recommend ‘Hold,’ and one recommends ‘Strong Sell,’ per Koyfin. Their average price target of $268.87 implies a 48% upside from the last close.

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