Salesforce Announces $25 Billion Buyback After Strong AI Earnings

Salesforce, Inc. reported strong fiscal second-quarter results, with revenue growing 11% to $11.35 billion and adjusted earnings per share reaching $5.90, nearly doubling analyst expectations. The results included a $2.6 billion gain from strategic investments, primarily in Anthropic. Driven by the Slack platform and agentic AI initiatives, the company's Agentforce annual recurring revenue surged over 240% to $1.5 billion, while Data 360 revenue tripled to $2.4 billion.

CEO Marc Benioff dismissed the "SaaSpocalypse" narrative, which suggests AI agents will replace software, arguing that AI models rely on the proprietary enterprise data Salesforce provides. To signal confidence in this data-centric strategy, the company announced a $25 billion share buyback, the largest in its history. Salesforce also introduced Claudeforce, a plug-in utilizing Anthropic's Claude, and noted that nine of the top ten AI companies currently use Salesforce and Slack.

Following the report, Salesforce shares rose 22.6% on August 27. The company raised its full-year fiscal 2026 revenue guidance to a range of $46.1 billion to $46.4 billion and increased its adjusted EPS projection to between $16.67 and $16.71.