LAS VEGAS, April 23, 2026, 11:34 PDT
- Salesforce and Google Cloud have expanded their AI collaboration, connecting Slack, Google Workspace, and Gemini Enterprise. These integrations will continue rolling out through late 2026.
- Salesforce shares slipped roughly 9% Thursday, hit by renewed AI-disruption jitters in software stocks after disappointing signals from ServiceNow and IBM.
- With Salesforce’s next earnings on deck, investors want harder evidence that AI offerings can drive growth—and not at the expense of margins.
Salesforce and Google Cloud on Wednesday rolled out fresh integrations, deepening their AI tie-up. Now, Salesforce’s Agentforce AI agents—designed for multi-step tasks with little human help—are plugging into Slack, Google Workspace, and Gemini Enterprise. The stock tumbled around 9% Thursday, showing investors remain unconvinced that these AI moves will drive reliable, long-term growth.
This is a tough spot for Salesforce. LSEG’s analyst survey points to the company posting its quickest revenue jump in over three years. Still, the software and services index has dropped roughly 16% since January—investors remain nervous that AI might eat into the old-line software business. ServiceNow kicked off earnings for the big SaaS players; Workday and Salesforce are next up.
Salesforce rolled out Agentforce Sales in open beta within Gemini Enterprise, the company said, while Gemini Enterprise for Slack remains in private preview. Slackbot is pulling content directly from Docs, Sheets, Slides, and PDFs to assemble shareable files. According to Salesforce, over 1,400 customers are already using Gemini inside Agentforce to build prompts.
Then there’s zero-copy access to Google Lakehouse—meaning data stays put and software can run queries right there. Salesforce is targeting late 2026 for that rollout. Slack’s search feature for Gmail and Google Drive is live now, and Gemini-powered reasoning for Agentforce should land in May.
Srini Tallapragada, who serves as president and chief engineering officer at Salesforce, says companies are “ready to go all in on agentic AI.” Over at Google Cloud, chief product and business officer Karthik Narain put it this way: the integration allows customers to use their data “with speed and confidence.” Salesforce
Google’s making its move with this partnership, too. On Thursday, the company said Gemini Enterprise now brings in partner-built agents from Salesforce, ServiceNow, and Workday—a step meant to highlight its pitch on governance, security, and model flexibility, as it works to carve out territory against Amazon and Microsoft in the enterprise AI race.
Salesforce’s latest agreement builds on a broader partnership first announced in February 2025. Back then, the companies said Agentforce would tap Gemini models and that Salesforce’s Agentforce, Data Cloud, and Customer 360 tools would operate on Google Cloud’s infrastructure. The rationale hasn’t shifted: give customers more AI model options, closer data integration, and fewer incentives to remain tied to a single vendor’s stack.
Even so, investors sold the stock. Salesforce slid roughly 9% Thursday. ServiceNow tumbled close to 18%. Microsoft gave up over 4%. The iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF lost nearly 6%—all after earnings from ServiceNow and IBM stoked fresh anxiety about AI shaking up software.
Joe Maginot, portfolio manager at Madison Investments, doesn’t expect much clarity on the “long-term bear case” over the coming quarter or two. UBS strategist Kiran Ganesh pointed to a “bigger range of outcomes” for tech ahead, as investors work to pick out infrastructure names and leave software laggards behind. Reuters
Salesforce now faces a tight squeeze: it needs to show that new product launches actually move the revenue needle. Some features, the company said, won’t hit the market until late 2026, and even those timelines are subject to change. Next earnings call, the spotlight’s likely to be on one thing—whether Agentforce is actually driving sales growth, keeping customers on board, and shoring up margins—not just on what’s being demoed.
