Salesforce, Inc. provides Customer Relationship Management (CRM) technology that brings companies and customers together worldwide. The company's service includes sales to store data, monitor leads and progress, forecast opportunities, gain insights through analytics and artificial intelligence, and deliver quotes, contracts, and invoices; and service that enables companies to deliver trusted and highly personalized customer support at scale. In addition, its platform offering comprise a flexible platform that enables companies of various sizes, locations, and industries to build business workflow and apps with customer; online learning platform that allows anyone to learn in-demand Salesforce skills; and Slack, an intelligent productivity platform. The company's marketing services enables companies to plan, personalize, automate, and optimize customer marketing journey, connecting interaction, and connected products; and commerce services, which empowers shopping experience across various customer touchpoint, such as mobile, web, social, and stores and provides click-to-code tools that offers customers to build and deploy solutions. Further, its analytics offering includes Tableau, an end-to-end analytics solution for range of enterprise use cases and intelligent analytics with AI models, spot trends, predict outcomes, creates summaries, timely recommendations, and take action from any device; and integration service including MuleSoft, which provides building blocks to deliver end-to-end and connected experiences. Additionally, the company provides data cloud, a hyperscale data engine native to Salesforce; vertical services to meet the needs of customers in industries, such as financial services, healthcare and life sciences, manufacturing and automotive and government; and offers salesforce starter for small and medium-sized businesses. Salesforce, Inc. was incorporated in 1999 and is headquartered in San Francisco, California.

Salesforce продолжает демонстрировать сильные финансовые показатели, включая рост чистой прибыли, операционной прибыли и выручки, что является важным положительным сигналом. Тем не менее, компания сталкивается с проблемами в отношении мультипликаторов, таких как P/S и P/FCF, которые значительно превышают медианные значения по отрасли, что указывает на потенциальную переоцененность. К тому же, текущие коэффициенты ликвидности, такие как current_ratio и quick_ratio, ниже медианных значений, что вызывает опасения о краткосрочной финансовой устойчивости. Тем не менее, низкий уровень долговой нагрузки и рост валовой, операционной и чистой маржи демонстрируют хорошие операционные результаты. Важно также отметить, что EPS и прогнозы EPS значительно выше медианных значений, что подчеркивает сильную позицию компании в долгосрочной перспективе. Таким образом, несмотря на некоторые риски, связанные с оценкой, общая картина выглядит позитивной.

Salesforce, Inc.

Key Points
It's seeking $25 billiion in financing.
This comprises eight tranches of varying coupons and maturities.
After market close Wednesday, Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) priced a bond offering that will provide the monies for a massive share repurchase program. Since investors like such programs, particularly when they're huge, they snapped up the customer relationship management (CRM) company's stock the following day. It closed Thursday up nearly 3% in price.
A seller and a buyer
Salesforce divulged that the $25 billion in senior notes it is floating will comprise eight tranches. The coupons range from 4.5% to 6.7%, with the earliest note maturing on March 15, 2028, and the latest on March 15, 2066. The interest on all notes is to be paid semi-annually.
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All proceeds the specialized tech company receives from the issue will be devoted to share repurchases. Such buys will be made under an accelerated share repurchase (ASR) arrangement, under which unnamed investment banks are contracted to purchase Salesforce stock aggressively.
The company added that the prepayment and initial share delivery under the ASR agreement is to occur by this coming Monday, March 16.
That's a lot of red ink
While large-scale (not to mention accelerated) share buyback programs can give a stock a nice boost when announced, I'd be a bit cautious here. $25 billion in debt is a significant amount to take on at once, even if some of those notes are very long-term, and the company has the resources to retire those borrowings over time.
Personally, I like to see companies use large chunks of capital to improve their businesses rather than fund monster-scale share buyback initiatives. Still, this wouldn't dissuade me from owning Salesforce stock, as the company is a powerhouse in the CRM world and likely to remain so.
Should you buy stock in Salesforce right now?
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Eric Volkman has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Salesforce. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.

Why Salesforce Stock Topped the Market on Thursday

Key Points
Software stocks have fallen amid fears that the companies' businesses will be disrupted by generative AI tools and services.
Uncertainty about the outlook for the sector has led to earnings multiple compression.
The last 15 years have been mostly great for companies that develop cloud-based enterprise software solutions. Software companies generally benefited by transitioning from a perpetual license sales model to a subscription model. They were also able to simplify their software development because their programs would be running on remote servers rather than on local machines with a wide range of hardware and operating systems to support.
The market rewarded the improving results of many of these businesses, but not everyone was sold on the lofty valuations of software-as-a-service (SaaS) stocks.
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The value investors at Harris | Oakmark felt the market was overvaluing many stocks in the sector, particularly because it was paying too little heed to the impact of stock-based compensation, which is prevalent at SaaS companies. The market also has a tendency to expect SaaS companies' revenue growth rates to be linear, ignoring the potential impacts of normal competition, argued analyst Jeremy G. Thames.
But the market is starting to consider the possibility that new rivals will seriously eat into the sales of many established enterprise SaaS companies. The potential for generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools to replace existing solutions has driven down stock prices across the industry. In fact, prices have gotten so low that Harris | Oakmark now sees some buying opportunities.
Two big reasons the market is overreacting
The massive sell-off in software stocks over the last few months was due to the perceived threat of generative AI. Tools like Claude Code from Anthropic are enabling people without any background in software engineering to create custom applications. Anthropic extended the Claude Code agent to general workplace productivity tasks with the introduction of Claude Cowork earlier this year, posing a direct threat to several established companies. Furthermore, some see LLMs' ability to facilitate natural language interactions with software as lowering the learning curve for software and reducing switching costs.
But Thames asserts that the fear that AI will completely disrupt the business models of many software companies doesn't reflect how the industry or large enterprises operate. He lays out two clear arguments as to why the AI threat could be overblown.
The first is that vibe-coded custom software is unlikely to replace established enterprise software suites offered by giants like Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) or SAP (NYSE: SAP). The reason businesses use those products isn't that they have unique features or better user interfaces.
"Executives choose established players because they are industry-standard products," Thames writes. That status brings with it a level of reliability, support services, a community of users to ask questions of and to help develop solutions, and a broad ecosystem of software and services that work with it.
In other words, you get more than just the software when you use Salesforce, SAP, or any other widely used program. That makes the switching costs high and provides intangible benefits unmatchable by new start-ups or custom vibe-coded solutions.
Second, Thames argues that the implementation of large language models in the workforce may ultimately benefit incumbent software providers.
"The utility of any AI tool is ultimately limited by the depth and quality of the data it can access and manipulate," he said. "We believe incumbent enterprise software companies have a distinct advantage here."
Indeed, Salesforce is building its Agentforce service on the back of its Data Cloud, which collects and stores enterprise data. Meanwhile, it has decades of user-generated data that it can draw from. That supports Thames' belief that "as AI becomes a critical component of the modern enterprise, it will rely heavily on the structured, trusted data and workflows that are encoded within these core systems." As a result, AI may actually make incumbent software solutions even more valuable for businesses.
How you can take advantage of the SaaS sell-off
Not every software company will be immune to the challenges posed by artificial intelligence, and not all will be able to take advantage of the opportunities the technology offers. But the indiscriminate sell-off in software stocks has created several great opportunities for investors.
The Harris | Oakmark memo calls out both Salesforce and SAP. Both companies are entrenched in their customers' operations, as they have long used the land-and-expand strategy to increase the value their customers provide to them over time.
SAP continues to transition to the cloud and posted current cloud backlog growth of 25% last year. However, that wasn't quite enough to stave off the fears that AI will displace its products. Management said the number would've been higher, but it was negatively impacted by long-term deals that have larger ramp-ups in their later years.
Salesforce is effectively using AI to increase the value of its entire ecosystem. Its Agentforce platform enables customers to create AI agents that effectively use its software. Agentforce sales increased 169% year over year last quarter to $800 million.
Other great opportunities in the software space include Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) and ServiceNow (NYSE: NOW). Revenues from Microsoft's enterprise software segment, which includes its Microsoft 365 suite and Dynamics 365, are still growing at percentage rates in the high-teens. That growth has been propelled by the integration of its Copilot AI feature, which now has 15 million paid subscribers. With over 400 million total Microsoft 365 users, it still has a lot more room to grow.
ServiceNow was quick to adopt generative AI features in its software suite. It's seeing strong momentum from Now Assist; its annual contract value reached $600 million at the end of 2025 and is on track to reach $1 billion by the end of 2026. The company is positioning its AI Control Tower platform as the center for any enterprise's agentic AI strategy, allowing them to integrate first- and third-party AI agents across its software.
After these stocks' declines of the last few months, they all present compelling buying opportunities. Their forward P/E ratios range from 15 (Salesforce) to 29 (ServiceNow) and accurately reflect each company's growth potential while accounting for the risks posed by AI. Importantly, all of these companies have shown the ability to adapt to AI and build moats around their businesses.
Should you buy stock in Salesforce right now?
Before you buy stock in Salesforce, consider this:
The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Salesforce wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.
Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $511,735!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,140,464!*
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Adam Levy has positions in Microsoft and Salesforce. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Microsoft, Salesforce, and ServiceNow. The Motley Fool recommends SAP. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.

This Longtime SaaS Bear Now Sees Value in the Beaten-Down Software Sector -- Here's What They Say Investors Are Getting Wrong

Salesforce, Inc. CRM has initiated a landmark $25 billion bond sale, earmarking the proceeds primarily for aggressive share buybacks. CRM is part of the Zacks Internet - Software industry and has a Zacks #3 (Hold). The offering is slated to close on March 13, pending standard closing conditions. The transaction marks one of the largest debt offerings in the company’s history and reflects a growing trend of corporations tapping the bond market to fund shareholder returns.
However, investor demand appeared weaker than expected, with buyers seeking higher yields than in the company’s previous debt offerings. The 10-year tranche was priced roughly 1.35 percentage points above U.S. Treasurys, a noticeably wider spread than what the firm achieved in 2021. The cautious reception reflects investor concerns about the company increasing leverage primarily to fund share buybacks, as well as broader uncertainty surrounding the long-term impact of artificial intelligence on enterprise software growth and spending.
However, the issuance highlights a maturing corporate playbook, i.e, leverage cheap debt for equity enhancement. It reflects reopening and depth of the investment-grade corporate bond market rather than exceptional enthusiasm for the specific deal. Companies like Salesforce may still be able to raise very large amounts of capital because institutional investors such as pension funds, insurers and asset managers continue to need high-quality yield.
Banking giants like JPMorgan Chase & Co.JPM and Bank of America Corporation BAC, via their respective securities arms, served as joint book-running managers, helping structure the offering, market the bonds to institutional investors and coordinate pricing for the multi-tranche deal. BAC carries a Rank #3, and JPM sports a #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
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The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.

Salesforce Taps Bonds for Buybacks as Investors Demand More Yield

In early trading on Wednesday, shares of Nike topped the list of the day's best performing Dow Jones Industrial Average components, trading up 2.0%. Year to date, Nike has lost about 10.2% of its value.
And the worst performing Dow component thus far on the day is Procter & Gamble, trading down 1.7%. Procter & Gamble is showing a gain of 7.0% looking at the year to date performance.
Two other components making moves today are Caterpillar, trading down 1.1%, and Salesforce, trading up 1.7% on the day.
VIDEO: Dow Movers: PG, NKE
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.

Dow Movers: PG, NKE

Salesforce, Inc. CRM shares have gained 5.1% in the past month, outperforming the broader Zacks Internet – Software industry, which has risen 3.9% in the same period. The stock has also performed better than several large enterprise software peers, including Oracle Corporation ORCL, Microsoft Corporation MSFT and SAP SE SAP. Over the past month, Microsoft stock gained 1%, while shares of Oracle and SAP have fallen 4.5% and 3.9%, respectively.
This outperformance, especially at a time when equity markets remain volatile due to macroeconomic uncertainty and geopolitical tensions, naturally raises a key question for investors: Should they stay invested in Salesforce or take profits after the recent move?
Salesforce One-Month Price Return Performance
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Strong Q4 Results Revive Salesforce’s Growth Narrative
The recent rally largely followed Salesforce’s better-than-expected fourth-quarter fiscal 2026 results reported on Feb. 25. The company had been facing concerns about slowing revenue growth. For years, Salesforce delivered strong double-digit expansion, but growth had recently cooled to the high single-digit range.
The trend changed in the fourth quarter when revenues grew 12% year over year. This improvement signaled that demand for Salesforce’s platform remains resilient.
Management expects this momentum to continue, projecting 12-13% growth for the first quarter and 10-11% growth for full fiscal 2027. Analyst estimates are also pointing to similar low-double-digit growth for the first quarter and fiscal 2027.
Salesforce Sales Growth Estimates
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Despite the positives, Salesforce’s outlook is exposed to ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty and geopolitical tensions that can affect enterprise IT spending. In uncertain economic environments, businesses often delay large IT spending, which can slow new deal activity and expansion revenues. Since Salesforce’s revenues come from enterprise customers, any slowdown in corporate budgets could directly impact growth.
Considering the uncertain macroeconomic environment, it would be a very difficult task for Salesforce to maintain the double-digit sales growth momentum.
AI and Platform Expansion Support CRM’s Long-Term Growth
Salesforce has long held the top position in the customer relationship management market, according to Gartner. Its strategy is expanding well beyond customer management. The company is building a broader enterprise ecosystem centered on artificial intelligence (AI), data and collaboration. Acquisitions such as Slack, Informatica, Waii, Bluebirds and Convergence.ai show Salesforce’s effort to create a unified enterprise platform.
AI is now central to Salesforce’s growth story. Since the 2023 rollout of Einstein GPT, Salesforce has been embedding generative AI across its offerings to help companies automate processes, improve decision-making and strengthen customer relationships.
Its latest innovation, Agentforce, is gaining momentum. Combined with Data Cloud, these AI-driven offerings brought in $2.9 billion in recurring revenues in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026, representing more than 200% year-over-year increase. Agentforce alone generated $800 million in recurring revenues, up 169% year over year. More than 60% of Agentforce deals came from existing clients, showing Salesforce’s success in cross-selling AI features to its user base.
Salesforce’s Valuation Remains Reasonable
Salesforce stock looks attractive from a valuation perspective. CRM is currently trading at a forward 12-month price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple of 14.69, significantly lower than the industry’s average of 28.41.
Salesforce Forward 12-Month P/E Ratio
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Compared to major competitors like SAP, Microsoft and Oracle, Salesforce stock is cheaper on a P/E basis. At present, SAP, Microsoft and Oracle trade at P/E multiples of 22.89, 22.51 and 19.16, respectively.
Conclusion: Hold Salesforce Stock for Now
Salesforce’s recent rally reflects improving growth expectations, strong AI adoption and a better-than-expected earnings performance. The company is also positioning itself well in the fast-growing AI-driven enterprise software market. Low valuation also makes the stock more attractive.
However, risks remain. Salesforce still depends on enterprise spending, which could fluctuate if macroeconomic uncertainty continues. Investors should also watch whether the company can consistently maintain double-digit revenue growth.
For now, the most sensible approach is to hold Salesforce stock while monitoring how its AI strategy and enterprise demand evolve in the coming quarters.
Currently, Salesforce carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
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The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.

CRM Stock Up More Than 5% in a Month: Should You Buy, Sell or Hold?

Key Points
ServiceNow should be able to deliver solid revenue growth despite "SaaSpocalypse" worries.
Microsoft's high capital expenditures aren't as concerning as some investors think.
Salesforce's valuation looks attractive after its steep sell-off.
"Buy low, sell high" is one of the most well-known investing adages. The main problem with following this four-word strategy, though, is knowing which low stocks are most likely to rise in the future.
Analysts with major investment firms are paid big bucks to identify those kinds of stocks. Here are three beaten-down tech stocks that could soar 40% or more, according to Wall Street.
Will AI create the world's first trillionaire? Our team just released a report on the one little-known company, called an "Indispensable Monopoly" providing the critical technology Nvidia and Intel both need. Continue »
1. ServiceNow
ServiceNow (NYSE: NOW) provides an artificial intelligence platform that enables customers to automate workflows. The company calls itself "the AI control tower for business reinvention." Its global customer base includes over 85% of the Fortune 500.
However, ServiceNow has been one of the victims of the so-called "SaaSpocalypse," a major sell-off of SaaS stocks on worries that AI will render many SaaS products obsolete. The company's share price is now more than 50% below its peak set in early 2025.
Wall Street thinks ServiceNow can bounce back. The consensus 12-month price target reflects a potential upside of 62%. Of the 44 analysts surveyed by S&P Global (NYSE: SPGI) in March who cover ServiceNow, 40 rated the stock as a "buy" or "strong buy."
Is this optimism warranted? I think so. ServiceNow continues to deliver strong growth, with revenue jumping 20.5% year over year in the fourth quarter of 2025. Its renewal rate of 98% remains exceptionally high. CEO Bill McDermott stated in the Q4 update, "With our consistent Rule of 55+ profile, there is no AI company in the enterprise better positioned for sustainable profitable revenue growth than ServiceNow." He could be right.
2. Microsoft
Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) ranks as the world's third-largest technology company by market cap. The tech giant is a leader in cloud services, productivity software, operating systems, gaming systems, quantum computing, and more.
After flying high in 2023, 2024, and much of 2025, Microsoft's stock momentum stalled in the fourth quarter of last year. The company's slowing growth in cloud services and increased AI-related capital expenditures raised concerns among many investors.
Is Wall Street worried about Microsoft? Nope. The average 12-month price target for Microsoft is roughly 46% higher than its current share price. Fifty-four of the 57 analysts recently surveyed by S&P Global rated the stock as a "buy" or better.
I suspect most analysts recognize that Microsoft's capital expenditures aren't risky, since most of the capital the company is deploying is for GPUs that are already contracted for most of their useful life. Wall Street also knows that agentic AI presents a significant growth opportunity for Microsoft.
3. Salesforce
Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) pioneered cloud-based customer relationship management (CRM) systems in 1999. It's now the global CRM leader, a position the company has held for 12 consecutive years. Salesforce has also emerged as a top innovator in agentic AI with its Agentforce platform.
Like ServiceNow, Salesforce was hit hard by the "SaaSpocalypse." Its stock is down almost 50% from the record high achieved in late 2024 and has fallen roughly 27% so far this year.
Wall Street thinks the downturn will only be temporary. The consensus 12-month price target for Salesforce reflects an upside potential of around 42%. Of the 54 analysts surveyed by S&P Global in March, 41 rated the stock as a "buy" or "strong buy."
I think the numbers back up this optimistic outlook. Salesforce continues to deliver double-digit revenue growth. Management expects accelerating growth in the second half of the current fiscal year. Meanwhile, Salesforce's shares trade at only 15 times forward earnings.
The sell-off of this stock appears to be overdone, in my view. Although I'm not sure if Salesforce's stock will soar more than 40% over the next 12 months, I expect a solid rebound.
Should you buy stock in Salesforce right now?
Before you buy stock in Salesforce, consider this:
The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Salesforce wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.
Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $530,233!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,119,682!*
Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 955% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 191% for the S&P 500. Don't miss the latest top 10 list, available with Stock Advisor, and join an investing community built by individual investors for individual investors.
*Stock Advisor returns as of March 11, 2026.
Keith Speights has positions in Microsoft. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Microsoft, S&P Global, Salesforce, and ServiceNow. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.

3 Beaten-Down Tech Stocks That Could Soar 40% or More, According to Wall Street

Key Points
ServiceNow's fourth-quarter subscription revenue grew 21% year over year, and its first-quarter guidance implies even faster growth.
Salesforce's underlying organic revenue growth has cooled to the high single digits, and its guidance implies further deceleration.
One stock trades at a much cheaper valuation than the other.
It has been a brutal start to 2026 for many software stocks. While the S&P 500 is down about 0.5% year to date as of this writing, shares of enterprise software giants Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) and ServiceNow (NYSE: NOW) have fallen about 26% and 23%, respectively.
The widespread sell-off of software-as-a-service stocks comes as investors reassess software valuations amid fears that artificial intelligence (AI) could disrupt software incumbents. Yet both of these tech companies are asserting that AI is actually turning into a major catalyst for their operations, successfully monetizing new generative AI products.
Will AI create the world's first trillionaire? Our team just released a report on the one little-known company, called an "Indispensable Monopoly" providing the critical technology Nvidia and Intel both need. Continue »
With both stocks beaten down this year, investors might be wondering if this is a good opportunity to buy the dip. Between the two, however, which growth stock is the better buy today?
Salesforce: slowing organic growth
Salesforce has dominated the customer relationship management (CRM) space for years, and the company continues to generate massive amounts of cash while expanding its profitability. And in its recently reported fourth quarter of fiscal 2026, the company's non-generally accepted accounting principles (non-GAAP) operating margin expanded to 34.2%, up from 33.1% a year ago.
The company is also seeing real traction with its AI initiatives. Its Agentforce platform reached $800 million in annual recurring revenue in the fourth quarter, an impressive 169% year-over-year increase.
And robust demand for its services is evident by its growing backlog. The company's remaining performance obligations (RPO) have risen to $72 billion, up 14% year over year.
However, while the company's profitability has expanded significantly, its underlying top-line momentum has cooled. When adjusting for the company's recent acquisition of Informatica, Salesforce's organic revenue growth in fiscal Q4 decelerated to roughly 8% year over year -- down from 9% organic growth in fiscal Q3. Even worse, the underlying organic revenue growth rate implied by management's fiscal 2027 outlook is in the 7% to 8% range.
ServiceNow: much faster growth
ServiceNow, on the other hand, is still putting up spectacular numbers.
The enterprise workflow software specialist's fourth-quarter subscription revenue came in at $3.47 billion, up 21% year over year. Even better, the company's current RPOs, which it defines as contract revenue expected to be recognized in the next 12 months, climbed to $12.85 billion. This represents a 25% year-over-year increase, signaling robust future demand.
Additionally, like Salesforce, ServiceNow is successfully monetizing AI. Management noted that the annual contract value for Now Assist, its embedded generative AI experience, surpassed $600 million in the fourth quarter. In addition, the company said its fourth-quarter Now Assist net-new account contract value doubled year over year.
In addition to its rapid top-line growth, ServiceNow is converting a massive amount of its revenue into cash, boasting a staggering 57% free cash flow margin in Q4.
And management expects this strong momentum to continue. For the first quarter of 2026, ServiceNow guided subscription revenue of up to $3.66 billion, implying approximately 21.5% year-over-year growth.
Backing up this growth is an aggressive share repurchase program. Highlighting management's confidence in the stock, the board authorized an additional $5 billion in share repurchases and announced an imminent $2 billion accelerated share repurchase.
Which software stock is the better buy?
When comparing these two beaten-down software stocks, ServiceNow is the easy choice.
Investors, of course, are willing to pay a premium valuation for ServiceNow's superior growth. As of this writing, the stock trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of about 29 and a price-to-sales ratio of roughly 10. At this valuation, ServiceNow stock is priced for a world in which high growth stays high for the foreseeable future.
Salesforce trades at a lower valuation (a forward price-to-earnings ratio of about 15 and a price-to-sales ratio closer to 5 for Salesforce), but that discount reflects its decelerating, high-single-digit organic growth.
Ultimately, ServiceNow's combination of accelerating near-term growth, expanding cash generation, and an aggressive share repurchase program makes it a more attractive long-term investment. I would much rather pay a premium for a business growing at 20% than buy a slower-growing incumbent.
But investors should keep in mind that both ServiceNow and Salesforce are high-risk stocks operating in fast-changing industries with AI being a potential threat. Yes, AI could be a tailwind as well. But it's not clear yet that its benefits will outweigh the risks.
Should you buy stock in ServiceNow right now?
Before you buy stock in ServiceNow, consider this:
The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and ServiceNow wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.
Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $530,233!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,119,682!*
Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 955% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 191% for the S&P 500. Don't miss the latest top 10 list, available with Stock Advisor, and join an investing community built by individual investors for individual investors.
*Stock Advisor returns as of March 10, 2026.
Daniel Sparks and his clients have no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Salesforce and ServiceNow. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.

Salesforce vs. ServiceNow: Which AI Stock Is a Better Buy?

Key Points
Nvidia is preparing to release an open-source platform to control AI agents.
The company has reached out to some of the biggest names in technology about potential partnerships ahead of its annual developer conference next week.
Nvidia stock remains attractively priced.
Since the advent of AI roughly three years ago, Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) has been at the heart of the artificial intelligence (AI) boom. The company's state-of-the-art graphics processing units (GPUs) provide the computational horsepower that underpins the technology. However, it's Nvidia's software platforms that have proven to be its most durable competitive advantage, helping users get the most out of the processing capability of its chips.
As the next phase of AI development unfolds, Nvidia is staying ahead of the curve and is about to go all-in on AI agents.
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The next stage of AI
Nvidia is poised to unveil an open-source platform for AI agents, according to a report by Wired. The platform, dubbed NemoClaw, will help companies deploy AI agents to accomplish tasks for their employees.
Ahead of Nvidia's GPU Technology Conference (GTC) next week, the company has reportedly reached out to some of the world's largest software companies seeking partners, including Alphabet, Salesforce, and Adobe, among others. Each of these companies is investing heavily in the development of agentic AI, which many experts believe is the next phase of AI adoption.
Nvidia is planning to provide security and privacy tools to partners, who will likely get early access to the platform in exchange for their participation, according to the report.
The advantage of using an open-source platform is that they are generally free to use, which encourages adoption, collaboration, and faster innovation. Furthermore, users are free to modify these tools to their specific needs, further accelerating adoption.
Advances in large language models in recent years gave birth to AI-powered chatbots like ChatGPT, which was arguable the catalyst that kicked off the AI revolution. Chatbots can generate original content, summarize data, and even write code, but these systems have limitations.
That's where AI agents come in. AI agents are more powerful autonomous systems that can reason and complete complex, multi-step tasks by breaking them down into smaller subtasks -- all without human intervention.
One of the most high-profile examples is OpenClaw -- previously called Clawdbot -- a platform for dispatching AI agents to perform tasks. It quickly went viral after its release late last year, thanks to its ability to perform complex tasks. However, some tech companies subsequently forbid employees from using the tool because it lacks the necessary safeguards and security needed to operate on enterprise networks. The importance of these guardrails can't be understated, which is why Nvidia is offering an additional layer of privacy and security tools for its NemoClaw.
Speaking at an investor conference last week, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang called OpenClaw the "most important software release ever." He went on to point out that it's "now the single most downloaded open-source software in history, and it took three weeks." This helps explain why Nvidia is planning to launch its own platform to deploy AI agents.
Huang also noted that the use of AI agents increases token consumption -- or the bits of text or data processed by AI -- by 1,000 times. This requires a great deal of computational horsepower, which underscores the opportunity ahead for Nvidia.
And at 22 times forward earnings, Nvidia stock is attractively priced.
Should you buy stock in Nvidia right now?
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Danny Vena, CPA has positions in Adobe, Alphabet, and Nvidia. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Adobe, Alphabet, Nvidia, and Salesforce. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: long January 2028 $330 calls on Adobe and short January 2028 $340 calls on Adobe. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.
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Nvidia's About to Go All-In on AI Agents

Key Points
The tech giant's Agentforce platform has witnessed robust traction so far in fiscal 2026.
Agentforce and Data 360 are also playing a crucial role in building a sticky customer base.
Salesforce stock, however, trades at a significant discount to its historical valuation.
Shares of Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) are down nearly 26% so far in 2026. Investors have been concerned whether artificial intelligence (AI) can disrupt the traditional seat-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) model and slow the growth of enterprise software companies. The company's muted fiscal 2027 revenue guidance of $45.8 billion to $46.2 billion, implying 10% to 11% growth, further reinforced fears of a slowdown in Salesforce's growth trajectory in tandem with the enterprise software industry.
Will AI create the world's first trillionaire? Our team just released a report on the one little-known company, called an "Indispensable Monopoly" providing the critical technology Nvidia and Intel both need. Continue »
However, the sell-off has ignored several important catalysts from Salesforce's recent earnings results. These include the rapid rise of its Agentforce AI platform, the strength of its recurring SaaS business, and its aggressive capital return program.
The number investors should watch
Salesforce has penetrated the rapidly evolving agentic AI space with Agentforce, an enterprise platform designed to build, deploy, and manage AI agents across a range of use cases, including customer service, sales development, employee support, and deep research.
Agentforce is already witnessing robust enterprise adoption. In the first 15 months since launch, the company has closed more than 29,000 Agentforce deals. Agentforce's annual recurring revenue (ARR) also grew 169% year over year to $800 million by the end of fiscal 2026 (ending Jan. 31, 2026). That single number suggests Salesforce's AI strategy is already translating into real revenue and that the company is adapting to the rapidly evolving AI landscape.
But there is more to Salesforce's AI strategy than Agentforce.
Building a broader AI ecosystem
Salesforce is also strengthening its AI ecosystem with Data 360, a unified data platform that consolidates enterprise data across multiple sources into a single trusted layer. The appeal of these offerings is evident, considering that over 60% of Agentforce and Data 360 bookings came from existing customers in the fourth quarter. Hence, AI agents, coupled with a trusted data layer, are helping the company penetrate deeper into its customers' technology stacks, thereby helping create a sticky client base.
In November 2025, Salesforce completed the $8 billion acquisition of enterprise AI-powered cloud data management player Informatica. Informatica Cloud contributed $399 million to Salesforce's revenue in fiscal 2026. The combination of the Agentforce platform and the Informatica data management platform further strengthens Salesforce's AI ecosystem.
Robust SaaS business
While AI is becoming a key growth driver, Salesforce's core business remains extremely resilient. In fiscal 2026, the company's revenue increased 10% year over year to $41.5 billion. Subscription and support contracts accounted for nearly 95% of total revenue, providing strong visibility into future quarters.
Salesforce is also profitable and reported a non-GAAP (adjusted) operating margin of 34.1% for fiscal 2026. The company exited fiscal 2026 with total remaining performance obligations (RPO, a measure of contracted backlog) of $72 billion, up 14% year over year. This contracted revenue provides multiyear revenue visibility that can support both future growth and ongoing investments.
Capital returns and valuation
Salesforce returned more than $14 billion to shareholders in fiscal 2026, representing 99% of its free cash flow.
Yet, Salesforce is trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of 25.1, dramatically lower than its three-year historical average of 132.06. While some valuation compression is justified as the company matures, investors appear to have reacted strongly to fears that AI will completely disrupt its business model.
Hence, considering its robust business model and AI-powered tailwinds, the stock seems to be a smart pick at current levels.
Should you buy stock in Salesforce right now?
Before you buy stock in Salesforce, consider this:
The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Salesforce wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.
Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $530,233!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $1,119,682!*
Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 955% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 191% for the S&P 500. Don't miss the latest top 10 list, available with Stock Advisor, and join an investing community built by individual investors for individual investors.
*Stock Advisor returns as of March 10, 2026.
Manali Pradhan, CFA has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Salesforce. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.

1 Number From Salesforce's Earnings That Changes the AI Narrative

HubSpot, Inc. HUBS is witnessing solid user engagement in its customer relationship management platform, which is driving subscription-based revenues. In the fourth quarter, Subscription revenues rose to $829 million from $687.3 million, up 21% year over year. The figure surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $811.55 million. The company added more than 9,800 net new customers during the quarter, which increased the total customer count to 288,706, up 16% year over year.
HubSpot sells multiple software hubs, such as Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, Service Hub, Content Hub and Operations Hub, within its platform. The company is witnessing steady multi-hub adoption from enterprise customers in the premium market. Recent results suggest 62% of new Pro+ customers adopt multiple hubs at entry. It has a significant scope in cross-selling its products to the existing customer base.
HUBS has also undertaken pricing optimization and transformed into a seat pricing model. The seat pricing model lowers the barrier for customers to get started with HubSpot and mitigates pricing friction for upgrades. The model intends to encourage more clients to adopt HubSpot services and expand their usage over time. Seat expansion is driving average subscription revenues per customer, which increased 3% year over year to $11,700 in the fourth quarter.
In the fourth quarter, deals above $5,000 monthly recurring revenues grew 33%, while deals above $10,000 MRR grew 41%. Customers with more than 500 seats grew fivefold, reflecting strong enterprise adoption. HubSpot AI features are also gaining strong popularity.
How Are Competitors Faring?
In the CRM space, HubSpot faces competition from Salesforce, Inc. CRM, one of the world’s leading Customer Relationship Management companies. The company dominates the market due to its strong clientele. In the CRM business segment, Salesforce generated $10.7 billion in revenues from Subscription and Support services in the fourth quarter. Rapid digital transformation and the company’s sustained focus on aligning products with customer needs are driving the top line. Salesforce’s initiative to integrate AI across its portfolio will likely drive growth.
Microsoft Corporation MSFT is also seeing healthy demand trends in the Productivity & Business Processes segment, which includes the Office and Dynamics CRM businesses. In the December quarter, revenues from Microsoft’s Dynamic 365 surged 19% year over year. The Dynamic 365 is powered by Microsoft Copilot, which facilitates the generation of engaging content, key insights and summarizes customer experience. This significantly boosts the efficiency of customer service workers, enabling sellers to accurately identify and engage their target market.
HUBS’ Price Performance, Valuation and Estimates
HubSpot has declined 51.1% over the past year compared to the industry’s decline of 0.1%.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Going by the price/book ratio, the company's shares currently trade at 7.27 book value, higher than 4.43 of the industry average.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
HUBS’ earnings estimate for 2026 and 2027 have improved 7.04% to $12.31 per share and 7.94% to $15.09 per share, respectively, over the past year.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
HubSpot currently sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
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The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.