Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE: CRM) stock is under pressure on December 15, 2025, even as new analyst commentary and fresh customer adoption headlines keep the long-term “Agentforce” AI narrative firmly in focus.
At last check Monday, CRM shares traded around $254, down a little over 3% on the session. That decline put Salesforce among the notable Dow components weighing on the blue-chip index in late morning trading, alongside 3M, according to MarketWatch’s intraday market tally. [1]
So what’s moving Salesforce stock today—and what are analysts forecasting next?
Salesforce stock price today: CRM falls with the market’s “AI winners vs. losers” debate
Salesforce stock’s move on Dec. 15 fits a broader pattern investors have grappled with across mega-cap software and AI-adjacent names: markets are increasingly trying to separate AI hype from AI monetization.
That theme showed up in today’s wider market research, too. In a note reported by Reuters, Citi set a 2026 year-end S&P 500 target of 7,700 and argued that while the AI tailwind should persist, investor focus may shift from “AI enablers” to AI adopters—creating a sharper winner-versus-loser dynamic. [2]
Salesforce wants to be seen as both: a major enterprise software platform and a practical on-ramp for companies deploying “agentic” AI at scale. But in the near term, CRM shares still trade on investor confidence that AI features will translate into measurable demand, contract value, and durable growth—not just compelling demos.
Today’s Salesforce news: a new Agentforce customer win in Asia
A key Salesforce headline dated December 15, 2025 is a new customer adoption announcement:
Salesforce said University of Nottingham Malaysia (UNM) is adopting Agentforce and deploying an AI agent called NOVA (Nottingham Online Virtual Assistant) to provide real-time responses to prospective student questions and to automate tasks like appointment scheduling. Salesforce noted the AI agent will be deployed across channels including the university website and messaging/social platforms. [3]
From an investor standpoint, announcements like this matter less for near-term revenue impact and more for what they signal about:
- Real-world usage (beyond pilots)
- Multi-channel deployment (web + messaging)
- Use cases tied to conversion (in this case, student recruitment and admissions workflows)
Individually, these deals are rarely needle-movers for a company of Salesforce’s size. Collectively, they help support the story that “agentic” AI is turning into a recurring commercial layer on top of Salesforce’s core clouds.
Analyst action on Dec. 15: Truist reiterates Buy and keeps a $380 price target
On the Street, one of the most-circulated notes Monday came from Truist Securities, which reiterated a Buy rating and maintained a $380 price target on Salesforce, according to an Investing.com report published today. [4]
Truist’s thesis, as summarized in the report, points to a few metrics and signals that matter to subscription software investors:
- Net new annual order value (NNAOV) accelerating relative to overall AOV growth
- cRPO (current remaining performance obligation) trends as a proxy for future revenue
- A view that those signals could support improving subscription and support revenue growth into FY27 and beyond [5]
The same report also referenced a cluster of other recent price targets that highlight how divided—but still generally constructive—coverage remains:
- Mizuho: Outperform, $340 target
- Cantor Fitzgerald: Overweight, $325 target
- UBS: Neutral, $260 target
- TD Cowen: Buy, $305 target [6]
The takeaway for readers tracking Salesforce stock forecasts: analysts are largely still willing to underwrite upside—but the range of targets reflects meaningful disagreement over how quickly AI becomes a paid growth engine.
The foundation investors are still trading: Salesforce’s FY26 Q3 results, guidance, and AI ARR
Even though today’s action is driven by fresh headlines and market positioning, Salesforce’s most recent earnings snapshot remains the anchor for most CRM stock analysis.
In its Q3 fiscal 2026 results release (quarter ended October 31, 2025), Salesforce reported:
- Revenue of $10.3 billion, up 9% year-over-year
- Subscription & support revenue of $9.7 billion, up 10% year-over-year
- cRPO of $29.4 billion, up 11% year-over-year
- RPO of $59.5 billion, up 12% year-over-year
- Non-GAAP operating margin of 35.5%
- Free cash flow of $2.2 billion, up 22% year-over-year [7]
Salesforce also said it raised full-year FY26 revenue guidance to $41.45–$41.55 billion, and highlighted shareholder returns including $3.8 billion in repurchases and $395 million in dividends in the quarter. [8]
Where the AI narrative meets the numbers is in Salesforce’s disclosure that:
- Agentforce + Data 360 ARR reached nearly $1.4 billion, up 114% year-over-year
- Agentforce ARR surpassed $0.5 billion, up 330% year-over-year
- Salesforce cited over 9,500 paid Agentforce deals and 3.2 trillion tokens processed through its LLM gateway [9]
Whether investors treat those metrics as “early but real” or “promising but unproven” is a big reason why Salesforce stock can swing sharply even when guidance is steady.
Product strategy update: opening Agentforce 360 to partners and commercializing the ecosystem
A major part of Salesforce’s plan to scale AI revenue is making AI agents buildable and sellable by partners—not only by Salesforce itself.
An ITPro report published Dec. 11, 2025 described Salesforce opening up Agentforce 360 so partners can build, package, and sell AI agents, with added data integration capabilities (including a “Zero Copy” partner network), deeper AppExchange automation, and flexible licensing approaches (including “Flex Credits”). [10]
ITPro also noted Salesforce expects a Partner Marketplace App in Q1 2026, and referenced upcoming availability milestones for related products such as Marketing Cloud tools and “Tableau Next” on an early-2026 timeline. [11]
For Salesforce stock investors, this matters because partner-driven distribution has historically been a force multiplier for Salesforce clouds. If Agentforce becomes “the next AppExchange moment,” it can change how quickly AI functionality spreads through the installed base.
CRM stock forecast: consensus price targets still imply upside, but the range is wide
As of mid-December 2025, broad consensus estimates still suggest upside from current levels—yet dispersion is notable.
- MarketBeat’s compiled analyst view lists an average 12‑month price target around $326 (with targets ranging roughly from the low $200s to $400+). [12]
- Investing.com’s consensus estimates similarly show an average target near $328, with a high estimate of $475 and low estimate around $223. [13]
- MarketWatch’s analyst estimates page (as surfaced in search results) showed a median target around $330 and an average target around $327.85. [14]
Read together, the message is straightforward: Wall Street still leans positive on Salesforce stock, but there’s no unified view on how large the AI uplift will be—or how quickly it arrives.
The bear case investors keep coming back to: will companies actually pay for AI in CRM?
Not all research has been flattering. A Barron’s write-up of a KeyBanc CIO survey (published last week) suggested that willingness to pay for AI features from CRM providers may be weaker than bulls expect, and that reported usage of Salesforce’s AI tools in that survey was low. [15]
That kind of data helps explain why Salesforce can deliver respectable quarterly numbers and still see sharp pushback: the market is demanding proof that “agentic AI” becomes a line item customers pay up for—rather than something bundled, discounted, or treated as table stakes.
At the sector level, Barron’s also highlighted a growing narrative risk around “the Death of SaaS” as AI changes software consumption and pricing models—an overhang that can affect sentiment even when it’s not specific to Salesforce. [16]
Pricing is part of the story: Salesforce signals a push toward predictable per-user AI pricing
One practical issue in monetizing AI is how to price it. In recent coverage, TechRadar reported Salesforce has been signaling a move toward per-user (seat-based) pricing for agentic AI tools after customer feedback favored predictability over usage-based charging. [17]
For CRM stock valuation, pricing structure matters because it shapes:
- Revenue visibility
- Gross margin trajectory
- Upsell math across large enterprise deployments
Seat-based pricing can make AI easier to sell at scale, but it can also invite tougher procurement scrutiny if customers don’t see usage and ROI rise fast enough.
Capital return watch: Salesforce’s next dividend record date is Dec. 18
Another near-term catalyst for Salesforce stock is the company’s growing capital return program.
Salesforce announced a quarterly cash dividend of $0.416 per share, payable January 8, 2026 to shareholders of record on December 18, 2025. [18]
While dividends aren’t the primary reason most investors own CRM, the payout reinforces the company’s shift toward a more mature “profitable growth” posture—especially when paired with the pace of buybacks highlighted in the last earnings release. [19]
Insider activity: ValueAct’s Mason Morfit bought 96,000 shares at $260.58
Investors looking for confidence signals have also pointed to recent insider buying.
A Form 4 filed with the SEC shows Salesforce director G. Mason Morfit (associated with ValueAct entities listed on the filing) reported a purchase of 96,000 Salesforce common shares at $260.58 on December 5, 2025. [20]
Insider transactions don’t predict short-term price moves—but they can influence sentiment when the market is debating whether weakness is a buying opportunity or a warning sign.
Another Salesforce-related headline: Slack CEO Denise Dresser to become OpenAI’s CRO
One more high-profile story investors may be weighing—though it’s not directly about Salesforce’s financial guidance—is leadership movement around Slack.
Reuters reported that OpenAI appointed Slack CEO Denise Dresser as Chief Revenue Officer, noting her role in Slack’s integration with Salesforce and her long tenure at Salesforce. [21]
It’s not automatically a negative for Salesforce, but leadership transitions at major subsidiaries can draw investor attention when the market is already hyper-focused on AI commercialization and enterprise go-to-market execution.
What to watch next for Salesforce stock
Here are the near-term checkpoints likely to matter most for CRM stock into year-end and early 2026:
- Dec. 18, 2025: Dividend record date (per Salesforce’s announcement). [22]
- Agentforce momentum signals: More customer deployments like today’s UNM announcement, especially in large enterprises and regulated industries. [23]
- Partner distribution: Continued rollout of Agentforce 360 ecosystem tools and early signs of partner-led commercial activity. [24]
- Next earnings window: Market calendars list Salesforce’s next report in late February 2026 (for example, Yahoo Finance’s calendar shows Feb. 25, 2026). Dates can change until the company confirms them. [25]
- Macro AI positioning: If markets truly rotate from AI infrastructure to AI adopters, Salesforce will be judged on measurable adoption and paid expansion—exactly the “winner vs. loser” setup Citi described. [26]
Bottom line: CRM stock is down today, but the debate is about 2026—not just the next quarter
Salesforce stock’s pullback on December 15, 2025 underscores how sensitive large-cap software names remain to positioning, macro narratives, and AI monetization confidence—even when analysts reiterate bullish calls and the company keeps publishing steady adoption wins.
The bullish case is still clear: growing AI ARR, expanding partner commercialization, and a large installed base that can be upgraded. [27] The skeptical case is also clear: the market wants proof that enterprises will pay meaningfully for AI in CRM at scale, and that pricing models will translate into durable growth. [28]
References
1. www.marketwatch.com, 2. www.reuters.com, 3. www.salesforce.com, 4. www.investing.com, 5. www.investing.com, 6. www.investing.com, 7. www.salesforce.com, 8. www.salesforce.com, 9. www.salesforce.com, 10. www.itpro.com, 11. www.itpro.com, 12. www.marketbeat.com, 13. www.investing.com, 14. www.marketwatch.com, 15. www.barrons.com, 16. www.barrons.com, 17. www.techradar.com, 18. investor.salesforce.com, 19. www.salesforce.com, 20. www.sec.gov, 21. www.reuters.com, 22. investor.salesforce.com, 23. www.salesforce.com, 24. www.itpro.com, 25. finance.yahoo.com, 26. www.reuters.com, 27. www.salesforce.com, 28. www.barrons.com
