How Is Salesforce Challenging ORCL & MSFT in the Agentic AI Space?

Salesforce, Inc. CRM is stepping up its competition with Microsoft Corporation MSFT and Oracle Corporation ORCL in agentic AI by combining customer data, business applications and autonomous AI agents on one platform. Its Agentforce platform is already gaining commercial traction, giving Salesforce a strong starting point in the fast-growing enterprise AI market.

The early numbers suggest that this strategy is gaining momentum. In the first quarter of fiscal 2027, Salesforce’s Agentforce annual recurring revenues (ARR) reached $1.2 billion, up 205% year over year. Combined Agentforce and Data 360 ARR approached $3.4 billion, more than doubling from a year earlier. Salesforce also processed 28.6 trillion AI tokens, up 152% sequentially, while Agentic Work Units increased 111% to 3.8 billion. These figures point to rapidly rising customer usage.

The biggest advantage for Salesforce is its large installed customer base. More than 50% of Agentforce and Data 360 bookings in the first quarter came from existing customers. This suggests Salesforce does not need to win every AI customer from scratch. Instead, it can encourage companies already using Customer 360 to spend more on AI.

Microsoft and Oracle remain powerful rivals. Microsoft has the advantage of Azure, Microsoft 365 and Copilot, while Oracle can combine its databases, cloud infrastructure and enterprise applications with AI. Salesforce, however, is concentrating on customer relationship management (CRM) solutions, where companies manage customers, sales pipelines and revenue operations.

The strategy is already helping strengthen the broader business. Salesforce raised its fiscal 2027 revenue outlook to $45.9-$46.2 billion, representing 11% growth at the midpoint. If Agentforce adoption continues to accelerate, Salesforce could turn its strong position in CRM into a meaningful advantage in enterprise agentic AI.

Salesforce’s Rivals Bring Powerful AI Ecosystems to the Fight

Microsoft and Oracle are formidable competitors to Salesforce in agentic AI because both can combine AI with large enterprise software and cloud platforms.

Microsoft is expanding its AI offering through Copilot Studio and Azure AI, moving beyond simple AI assistance toward autonomous agents that can perform tasks across business applications. Microsoft 365 Copilot is already showing strong adoption. Paid seats surpassed 30 million in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026, while net seat additions more than doubled sequentially. Customers deploying more than 50,000 seats increased more than sevenfold year over year. Azure and other cloud services revenues also jumped 43%.

Oracle is taking a more data-centric approach. Its Oracle AI Database 26ai is designed to serve as a foundation for agentic AI, while AI agents are being embedded across its Fusion Cloud applications. Oracle says its AI architecture can reduce manual procurement work by 60-80% and lower inventory carrying costs by 15-30%. Its Multicloud AI Database revenues surged 404% year over year in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2026.

Salesforce faces strong competition from Microsoft and Oracle. Microsoft has unmatched scale across cloud and productivity software, while Oracle has deep control over enterprise data and applications. Salesforce does not need to beat its rivals everywhere. Its bigger opportunity is to make Agentforce the leading AI layer for CRM and turn rapid adoption into durable revenue growth.

Salesforce’s Price Performance, Valuation and Estimates

Shares of Salesforce have plunged 24% year to date, while the Zacks Internet – Software industry has fallen 2.6%.

Salesforce YTD Price Return Performance

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From a valuation standpoint, CRM trades at a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 13.56, significantly below the industry’s average of 28.40.

Salesforce Forward 12-Month P/E Ratio

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The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Salesforce’s fiscal 2027 and 2028 earnings implies a year-over-year increase of approximately 13.1% and 9.3%, respectively. Estimates for fiscal 2027 earnings have been revised upward in the past 30 days, while estimates have been revised downward for fiscal 2028 over the same time frame.

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Salesforce currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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