Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) just turned in a quarter that, on paper, looked solid. Revenue climbed to $9.8 billion in Q1 FY26, up 7.6% year over year. And yet, the stock is down 20% for the year, so what gives?
This kind of reaction isn’t just noise. It’s a signal that tells us investors aren’t spooked by the past but are worried about the next five years. So the big question now is does Salesforce bounce back by 2030 or is it slipping into the kind of sluggish middle age that hits once-sexy tech giants?
Why the Stock Fell Despite Good Earnings
Salesforce actually beat earnings expectations in Q1 2025 and guidance was strong too. But investors weren’t cheering and instead, the stock tumbled hard, wiping out tens of billions in market capitalization.
The puzzle for shareholders is why? It didn’t seem to be about last quarter’s numbers but rather a surprise $8 billion acquisition of Informatica.
This wasn’t some AI-native upstart or bleeding-edge infrastructure play because Informatica is a legacy data management firm, so not exactly the kind of name that screams “future of tech.”
And here’s the issue. Salesforce has been setting itself up as an AI leader. Indeed, Marc Benioff has pitched the firm’s new AI strategy as its next chapter. So why buy a company most people associate with ETL pipelines from the early 2000s?
What’s Really Going On With This $8 Billion Bet?
There’s actually a real logic here, even if Wall Street hates it right now. Informatica isn’t flashy, but it holds something Salesforce desperately needs and that is clean, structured, enterprise-ready data.
For AI tools like Agentforce to work well, they need high-quality, organized information. And that’s Informatica’s bread and butter.
Benioff is betting that owning the data layer will give Salesforce a moat in the AI arms race. That may not win headlines, but it may very well prove to be a savvy long-term move and the kind of thing investors look back on and say, “Oh, that’s when the flywheel started turning.”
Still, it’s no slam dunk acquisition. The integration will be messy. And $8 billion isn’t chump change. It’s Salesforce’s biggest deal since Slack. That one didn’t pan out right away either.
Agentforce Is It Hype or Hidden Treasure?
Now let’s talk about Agentforce, Salesforce’s big AI product, which is an assistant for sales, marketing, and support reps that promises to handle everything from writing emails to predicting deal close rates. Microsoft, Adobe, Google all offer some variation of this pitch.
But here’s what makes Agentforce different is it’s deeply baked into Salesforce’s core products. It’s not just a chatbot sitting on top of the data but is more so operating inside the CRM engine itself.
And while early reviews are mixed, the Q1 2025 conference call offered a rare nugget with over 60% of large enterprise customers are already testing Agentforce. That’s fast adoption for a brand-new tool.
The catch? Most of those trials are still free or in pilot mode. Real monetization hasn’t kicked in, yet.
So by 2030, either Agentforce becomes a needle-mover or it fades into the pile of “nice-to-have” SaaS features. The smart money seems is betting that Agentforce becomes core to upsell bundles, not a standalone revenue stream. And that’s fine — as long as churn stays low.
Where Analysts Think CRM Is Heading by 2030
At the moment, the median analyst price target on Salesforce is $270, according to the consensus from FactSet, or in other words about 30% higher than where shares sit today.
Morgan Stanley’s technology desk published a note this May highlighting that Salesforce has even outperformed ServiceNow in large deal wins this year. Indeed, CRM reportedly landed four of the ten largest AI+CRM deals in Q1, including a global license with a top-5 pharmaceutical firm.
One stat that sellers seem to have skipped past is the average deal size for Salesforce’s top 100 customers rose 14% in the past six months. That’s the sharpest jump since 2019.
These aren’t short-term metrics but suggest Salesforce still has pricing power in spite of fears that it’s losing relevance to vertical-specific rivals.
What Will Drive a Comeback?
So what needs to go right for Salesforce to climb higher over the next five years?
Here’s the short list:
Informatica integration has to work. Benioff and team need to show that owning the data stack adds value. That means better AI insights, not more menu options.
Agentforce adoption must turn into real revenue. It’s one thing to get enterprises excited. It’s another to charge them more and get them to pay.
Margin discipline has to stick. One of the reasons CRM soared in 2023 and 2024 was because it cut back on bloat. That playbook can’t go out the window with a fresh M&A binge.
And finally, Benioff has to stick the landing. He’s no longer seen as the eternal optimist. He’s now the guy investors look to for clear, steady execution.
Valuation Clues and What the Market Is Pricing In
At the moment, Salesforce trades around 26x forward earnings. That’s not crazy for a software name, but it’s not cheap either.
To justify a higher multiple, the business needs to convince the market that it’s back in growth mode, not just in revenue, but in innovation.
Interestingly, activist investor chatter has picked up again. According to a May 2025 Bloomberg report, one of the funds that previously pushed for cost cuts is accumulating shares again. They smell value here. Or at least a setup for a turnaround.
Buybacks are part of the puzzle too. In Q1, Salesforce repurchased $2 billion worth of stock, the largest quarterly buyback to date. That’s a strong vote of confidence, and it helps absorb some of the volatility from deal announcements.
Where Will Salesforce Stock Be in 5 Years?
Fast forward to 2030. Here’s the most likely outcome we suspect. Salesforce won’t double but it also won’t fade away.
A realistic path puts the stock between $320 and $350, implying a 10%–13% annual return from current levels. Not thrilling, but steady. Think of it as the tech equivalent of a dividend aristocrat, reliable, maybe a little boring, but still compounding.
The real upside comes from one wildcard is AI-driven CRM. If Salesforce locks in a defensible lead there, margins and pricing both rise. And that moves the stock into premium territory again.
Is that baked in right now? Nope. That’s why the stock has lagged.
But for long-term investors who believe in Benioff’s playbook and can stomach a few quarters of noise, Salesforce may very well be one of the better large-cap bets out there. And that’s not nothing.
The author has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Financhill has a disclosure policy. This post may contain affiliate links or links from our sponsors.
