Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to revolutionize companies and industries across the board. And one marketing company that has been investing heavily into AI agents is Salesforce (CRM 1.14%). CEO Marc Benioff is extremely excited about the potential for its Agentforce platform to automate tasks and help add efficiency for businesses, making it easier for them to connect with their customers through AI.
Recently, Benioff made a startling claim: Between 30% and 50% of the work at Salesforce is now down via AI. While that's an impressive statement to make, here's why I'd hold off on investing in the stock.
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Benioff makes a big claim, but will the results back it up?
If a company says that close to 50% of its work is now done by AI, my first expectation would be to see its financials improve -- significantly. And that's what investors should be looking for when Salesforce reports its latest earnings numbers, which should be around late August or early September.
While Benioff says this added efficiency now allows workers to focus on "higher-value work," then at the very least, the company's growth rate should accelerate if that's the case. By doing more meaningful work, that should presumably mean that it may be winning over more customers in the process; otherwise, what would it be all for?
Investors should exercise some skepticism with these types of claims because they can be convenient to make and sound impressive, but if they aren't backed up by stronger financials, then it can be hard to really substantiate them. And the problem is Benioff in the past has often been dismissive of other companies' AI capabilities while boasting about his own company's Agentforce platform. In the past, for example, he has referred to Microsoft's Copilot as the latest iteration of its Clippy assistant, which drew the ire of many users decades ago.
Benioff has been a great promoter and marketer of Salesforce, but CEOs can sometimes hype up their businesses a bit too much. Despite its investments into AI, Salesforce has delivered just single digit revenue growth in its most recent quarter (which ended on April 30), with sales rising by 8% to $9.8 billion -- that's slower than the 11% growth rate it achieved a year earlier.
Investors aren't buying the hype
For all the excitement Benioff has about his company and Agentforce, investors don't appear to be sharing that same enthusiasm. As of Tuesday's close, the tech stock has fallen by more than 18% since the start of the year. While it's not near its 52-week low of $230 just yet, investor sentiment has been souring on the stock, which may be attributable to its low growth rate and concerns of a slowing economy due to trade wars. If the economy slows down, companies may scale back on marketing expenditures and investments into AI.
Benioff's latest claim also may set high expectations for the business when it goes to report earnings. The stock already trades at more than 40 times its trailing earnings, and a growth rate in the single digits likely isn't going to impress investors. For Salesforce to prove that AI is really transforming its business, investors should expect to see a drastically improved top or bottom line, or at least a very strong guidance.
A wait-and-see approach makes sense with Salesforce
Salesforce's CEO talks a good game but until the company backs it up with some stronger financials to help make its valuation look more justifiable, I'd hold off on investing in the stock today. The danger is that when expectations are set so high, it can make it difficult for the business to meet them. I'm always wary of CEOs who pump up their businesses so much, as that can set their stocks up for declines later on, especially if reality doesn't line up with those rosy claims and projections.
