NEW YORK, April 9, 2026, 11:03 EDT
Salesforce shares dropped to a new 52-week low Thursday, deepening a selloff that’s stretched on for months—even as the company delivered strong quarterly numbers and flagged rapid uptake of its AI offerings. By 10:46 a.m. ET, the stock was off 3.7% at $169.76, after touching $167.17 earlier in the session and breaking below its previous 52-week low of $174.57, according to Salesforce’s investor site.
This isn’t just about a single stock. Worries that AI breakthroughs could erode established subscription models have been hammering software names, with the S&P 500 software and services index losing roughly $1 trillion since Jan. 28. The sector has dropped 28% from late October.
Salesforce continues to face skepticism from the market, caught between strong AI numbers and an outlook that left Wall Street wanting more. Back in February, the company put out a fiscal 2027 revenue target of $45.8 billion to $46.2 billion—just shy of the midpoint that LSEG had penciled in. Valoir’s CEO Rebecca Wettemann pointed out that Salesforce still needs to “translate early AI traction into broader enterprise adoption.” Reuters
Salesforce is handing bears some data to chew on as well. Fourth-quarter revenue climbed 12% to $11.2 billion. Agentforce, the company’s AI agent platform, now pulls in $800 million in annual recurring revenue and has closed more than 29,000 deals since its debut. CEO Marc Benioff called Agentic AI “a tailwind for our business.” Salesforce Investor Relations
Management emphasized its focus on rewarding shareholders. Salesforce bumped its buyback authorization up to $50 billion and lifted the quarterly dividend to 44 cents a share. President and Chief Financial and Operating Officer Robin Washington said those moves made the company “more confident in our path to reaccelerate organic revenue growth.” Salesforce Investor Relations
Selling swept across the board Thursday, yet Salesforce once more took a heavy hit. ServiceNow slid 5.6%. Oracle shed 3.7%. Microsoft was down 1.9%. Software names trailed a market that was already sluggish. Back in March, Oracle did manage a brief breakout—shares surged about 12% after an upbeat forecast calmed investor nerves about its AI spending.
Still, the threats are hard to miss. Buybacks alone haven’t stabilized the sector. Back in March, Peter Tuz, president at Chase Investment Counsel, put it bluntly: “there needs to be demonstrated evidence” that AI won’t upend a software company’s business. Thursday brought more pressure—oil bounced and optimism for rate cuts thinned, piling on. Reuters
Last month, analysts told Reuters that firms sitting on years of proprietary enterprise data—and boasting high switching costs—still have the upper hand as clients decide where to develop AI tools. James St. Aubin at Ocean Park Asset Management described proprietary data as “the deepest moat by far.” The focus for Salesforce: does that moat actually deliver a pickup in growth before the stock finds its footing? Reuters
