(Reuters) - Salesforce raised its revenue and adjusted profit forecasts for fiscal 2026 on Wednesday, as the enterprise software provider benefits from strong cloud spending while ramping up monetization of its artificial intelligence agents.
Cloud spending from major enterprises has remained resilient even amid global macroeconomic uncertainty over the past few months, as companies invest heavily in artificial intelligence to modernize their digital infrastructure.
Shares of the company were up around 1.5% in extended trading.
Higher cloud spending bodes well for Salesforce's efforts to ramp up monetization for its AI agent platform, Agentforce, as it bets big on agentic technology to spur adoption of its software offerings.
The company said it closed over 8,000 deals since launching Agentforce, with half of them already paid. Its Data Cloud and AI annual recurring revenue has exceeded $1 billion.
While Agentforce's monetization has underperformed investors' expectations, "experts have cited a multi-billion dollar revenue opportunity by the end of 2026, with the expectation that Agentforce will ultimately become Salesforce's largest revenue contributor," said Third Bridge analyst CharlieMiner.
Salesforce bought data management platform Informatica for about $8 billion on Tuesday to bolster its data tools.
The company's re-entry into big-ticket M&A after years on the sidelines sparks concerns about Salesforce's ability to return to double-digit growth without relying on acquisitions.
"The acquisition of Informatica represents an attempt by the company to compensate for the slowing organic growth," said Gil Luria, analyst at D.A. Davidson.
The company expects fiscal 2026 revenue to be between $41 billion and $41.3 billion, compared with its prior forecast range of $40.5 billion to $40.9 billion.
It raised its full-year forecast for adjusted earnings per share to a range of $11.27 to $11.33, compared to its previous forecast of $11.09 to $11.17 per share.
The company reported first-quarter revenue of $9.83 billion, beating estimates of $9.75 billion, according to data compiled by LSEG.
(Reporting by Zaheer Kachwala in Bengaluru; Editing by Alan Barona)
