Salesforce Downgraded by Two Research Firms Amid Concerns Over AI Product Agentforce

Salesforce, a leading customer relationship management (CRM) platform, has received a double blow from two research firms, KeyBanc Capital Markets and Bernstein, who downgraded the company’s stock to a ‘Hold’ rating. This rare occurrence highlights growing concerns over the adoption and effectiveness of Agentforce, Salesforce’s flagship AI agent platform.

The downgrades were announced on Thursday, July 9, with KeyBanc moving Salesforce to ‘Sector Weight’ from ‘Overweight’ and Bernstein downgrading the stock to ‘Sector Weight’ from ‘Outperform’, according to Investing.com. Both firms cited the slow adoption of Agentforce as a major concern, with KeyBanc analyst Jackson Ader stating that the only reason to buy the stock now is that it’s cheap.

Ader’s team noted that customer data is not organized enough for real AI work, and Agentforce ‘just isn’t there’ yet as a product, according to TipRanks. A recent survey of chief information officers (CIOs) further deepened the worry, with more of them planning to trim Salesforce spending over the next year than raise it.

The Concerns Surrounding Agentforce

Agentforce is Salesforce’s wager that AI agents, software that carries out tasks on its own instead of just answering questions, will power its next decade of growth. However, the company’s revenue model is at risk if agents handle work people used to do, as customers may need fewer seats, which could shrink revenue rather than grow it.

Salesforce is now trying to charge for the work its agents complete instead of for headcount, though that model is still unproven at scale. The analyst checks matter because they test the changes the company wants to make against reality. If customers need months to get their data ready before agents can run, the revenue Salesforce promises will arrive later than bulls expect.

The Numbers Salesforce Leans On to Defend Agentforce

Salesforce released its first-quarter fiscal 2027 report on May 27, which showed Agentforce’s annual recurring revenue reaching $1.2 billion, up 205% from a year earlier. The company’s revenue also rose 13% to about $11.1 billion, operating margins set a record, and management raised its full-year guidance, according to an SEC release.

CEO Marc Benioff has kept spending into the shift, pledging $1 billion to Switzerland this week on top of earlier commitments to Italy and France, Salesforce reported. However, the downgrades by KeyBanc and Bernstein highlight a rare split between what a company reports and what its buyers say on the ground.

What CRM Investors Should Watch Next

For investors, the question is simple: will Agentforce show up in the growth numbers, or stay a promise? Three signals that would ease the bear case are:

• Signed deals set to become revenue over the next year growing in the mid-teens or better.
• Agentforce revenue climbing well beyond $1 billion on new customers, not just upsells to existing ones.
• Guidance that beats Wall Street when the company reports next.

The stock is hardly expensive after a roughly 37% slide this year, trading near 19 times earnings, paying a dividend, and sitting about 80% below its post-2020 free-cash-flow peak, GuruFocus data shows. However, being cheap did not stop the downgrades, as both firms argued that the discount would fade once slower growth is priced in.

Salesforce is still a deeply rooted platform, its customers are unlikely to walk away from it. The unresolved question is whether Agentforce becomes a real growth engine. The next earnings report will provide more answers.