Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) stock traded higher by about 13% during Thursday’s premarket session as investors reacted to a Q2 double beat and upbeat guidance alongside a new “Claudeforce” partnership with Anthropic.
Nasdaq futures are up 1.06% while S&P 500 futures have gained 0.43%.
Salesforce is gaining momentum across AI, Slack and its core cloud products, with CEO Marc Benioff pointing to stronger bookings, customer retention and expanding AI adoption after the company’s latest quarter.
Benioff Says Salesforce Growth Is Accelerating
Benioff told CNBC’s Jim Cramer that Salesforce delivered its strongest net new annual order value growth in four years. Seats increased year over year across Agentforce, Sales, Service and Slack, while customer attrition remained near its lowest level on record.
He also said bookings for Salesforce’s A1E and A4X bundles more than doubled sequentially, while contract lengths improved across new business and renewals.
Agentforce usage increased sixfold as AI agents made greater use of Salesforce through its Model Context Protocol connections. Benioff said nine of the 10 largest AI companies use Salesforce and Slack, with their combined spending rising 435% year over year.
Slack also delivered triple-digit bookings growth during the quarter. Benioff highlighted customers including Nike, General Motors and Robinhood as examples of companies standardizing on the platform.
Anthropic Partnership Extends Salesforce’s AI Strategy
Benioff said Salesforce’s expanded partnership with Anthropic reinforces his view that advanced AI models depend on enterprise data and applications rather than replacing them.
Salesforce and Anthropic developed Claude Force, which combines Anthropic’s Claude with Salesforce’s customer data, applications, security controls and AI tools. Benioff expects the product to help businesses build new applications while extracting more value from information already stored across their systems.
He also emphasized Salesforce’s data foundation, including capabilities added through its Informatica acquisition, as critical to supporting AI models across sales, service, marketing, commerce and analytics.
Agentforce Expands Across Enterprise And Government
Benioff said more than 450 companies now use Salesforce’s IT service-management offering, including a recent McAfee conversion from ServiceNow.
He also pointed to Salesforce’s growing U.S. government presence. The U.S. Army expects to handle 55 million Agentforce conversations each month, while Salesforce is also working on IRS modernization.
Benioff said Salesforce has completed more than 5 million autonomous service interactions internally, with roughly 2.5 million cases automatically escalated to human agents when needed.
He added that Salesforce now generates nearly $47 billion in revenue, compared with less than $1 billion when he first appeared on Cramer’s show in 2009.
Top ETF Exposure
- SmartETFs Advertising and Marketing Technology ETF (NYSE:MRAD): 4.11% Weight
- iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF (BATS:IGV): 4.86% Weight
- First Trust Dow Jones Internet Index Fund (NYSE:FDN): 4.66% Weight
Significance: Because CRM carries significant weight in these funds, any significant inflows or outflows for these ETFs will likely force automatic buying or selling of the stock.
Analyst Consensus & Recent Actions: The stock carries a Buy rating with an average price forecast of $233.13. Recent analyst moves include:
- Citizens: Market Outperform (Maintains forecast to $315.00) (Aug. 25)
- Canaccord Genuity: Buy (Maintains forecast to $225.00) (Aug. 25)
- BTIG: Buy (Maintains forecast to $255.00) (Aug. 24)
Price Action
CRM Stock Price Activity: Salesforce shares were trading higher by 13.17% at $232.70 during premarket trading on Thursday, according to Benzinga Pro data.
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