Salesforce Rebuffs ‘SaaSpocalypse’ Fears in Q4 Earnings Call | News

Salesforce reported strong fiscal Q4 results and dismissed concerns that AI upstarts will displace traditional SaaS, CEO Marc Benioff told investors.

Salesforce Inc. reported fiscal fourth-quarter revenue of $11.2 billion, marking approximately a 10% year-over-year increase, and delivered $41.5 billion in revenue for its 2026 fiscal year, up 10% annually, according to a company earnings release. Remaining performance obligation (RPO) exceeded $72 billion, indicating substantial contracted future revenue.

On a quarterly investor call, Chair and Chief Executive Officer Marc Benioff addressed persistent market narratives that artificial intelligence could undermine the traditional software-as-a-service (SaaS) model, directly referring to the concept labelled by some investors as a “SaaSpocalypse.” Benioff characterized the current environment as another cyclical challenge that the company has previously weathered, asserting in remarks that “this is not our first SaaS-pocalypse” and framing SaaS adoption as resilient amid technological evolution.

Benioff positioned AI-driven agents and platform integration as reinforcing Salesforce’s enterprise software offerings rather than displacing them. He emphasized partnerships with AI model providers, including those by Anthropic and OpenAI, noting their models’ compatibility with Salesforce’s Data 360 platform, which harmonizes and integrates enterprise data for customers. The CEO highlighted that many AI companies themselves rely on Salesforce and Slack for operational and customer relationship functions.

During the earnings call, Salesforce highlighted significant growth in its AI-centric product revenues. The firm’s Agentforce platform achieved $800 million in annual recurring revenue, more than doubling year-on-year, and the combined annual recurring revenue for its Agentforce and Data 360 offerings exceeded $2.9 billion. The number of Agentforce accounts in production reportedly increased nearly 50 % quarter-over-quarter, and the company reported closing 29,000 Agentforce deals in the period.

Salesforce introduced a new metric — “agentic work units” (AWUs) — designed to measure the execution of discrete business tasks by AI agents, extending beyond simple token counts used in traditional AI processing metrics. Executives described AWU as a measure of completed business actions, such as record updates or workflow triggers, to quantify agent utility in enterprise contexts.

The company’s earnings call also revisited its competitive positioning relative to rivals. Benioff discussed traction in areas such as IT service management, where Salesforce has competed with ServiceNow, citing the onboarding of customers migrating from competing solutions. He also referenced the use of Salesforce’s Slackbot AI within collaboration environments, contrasting it with other platforms.

Salesforce’s earnings release detailed improvements in profitability and cash flow. For the full fiscal year 2026, the company reported operating cash flow of $15.0 billion and free cash flow of $14.4 billion, increases of 15% and 16%, respectively. The firm also returned $14.3 billion to shareholders through share repurchases and dividends, and unveiled a $50 billion share repurchase program, replacing prior authorization. Salesforce raised its quarterly dividend to $0.44 per share, up nearly 6 % year-over-year.

Salesforce forecast first-quarter fiscal 2027 revenue of $11.03 billion to $11.08 billion, and projected full fiscal 2027 revenue between $45.8 billion and $46.2 billion, reflecting 10% to 11% growth versus the prior year on a constant currency basis. Informatica, acquired in 2025, was noted as contributing incremental revenue growth.

In summarizing the company’s outlook during the call, Salesforce executives reiterated the coexistence of traditional subscription-based business with evolving agent-driven capabilities, asserting that hybrid growth models combining seat-based licensing and consumption metrics would persist. Executives reported accelerating seat counts and expressed confidence in the role of AI features to expand the value delivered to enterprise customers.