Salesforce has endured a rollercoaster 2025 when it comes to its stock valuation. The company is, of course, the dominant name in enterprise software, but its share price is down by 25% year-to-date while many competitors are currently climbing. This has frustrated many investors, who now want to see revenue driven by Salesforce’s much-hyped AI offerings.
Investment bank Jefferies recently released its latest research notes on Salesforce, reiterating an optimistic “Buy” rating on the CRM giant with a price target of $375, which is almost 50% higher than the current asking price.
However, this optimism isn’t unconditional. Jefferies’ research team states that the stock won’t get the re-rating investors are hoping for until Salesforce improves in a few different areas, including the number of customers actually paying for their AI products.
In this article, we’ll break down the six biggest takeaways from the research, what they mean for Salesforce, and why they matter for anyone working in the ecosystem.
1. Partner Channel Shows Stability, Not Surge
One of the clearest signals from Jefferies’ research comes from Salesforce’s partner channel. Out of 20 large consulting firms surveyed, 40% said they were exactly on target for the quarter, another 40% were just ahead, and only 20% of respondents were behind.
Looking to 2026, half expect growth to hold steady compared to 2025, 30% predict acceleration, and 20% expect things to slow down.
On the surface, this looks very solid for Salesforce – 80% of partners are either beating or meeting expectations. But it also highlights that the ecosystem is currently steadying rather than booming.
Jefferies’ research suggests that much of the work keeping partners on track comes from renewals, upgrades, and optimization projects that can’t easily be delayed. The firm also highlights Field Service as a bright spot, with Data Cloud showing promise, while more optional projects like Revenue Cloud Advanced are under pressure.
For Salesforce, this matters because the partner channel is a leading indicator of customer demand. The takeaway here is that the ecosystem looks healthy and resilient, but it isn’t signaling the kind of breakout momentum that would give Wall Street confidence without clearer AI-driven revenue on the horizon.
2. Salesforce Stock Looks Cheap, But AI Keeps it Capped
From a pure numbers perspective, it’s fair to say that Salesforce’s stock looks slightly undervalued. The company trades at around 16x its projected 2026 free cash flow, while many peers, according to Jefferies, are closer to 28x. This means that most investors value Salesforce almost half as much as potential competitors in 2025.
The main reason for this is that there’s still a lack of trust in what Salesforce can truly achieve with AI – or more specifically, Agentforce. Anyone who’s been in the ecosystem last year knows how much Agentforce now means to Salesforce’s product, and the marketing behind it has oftentimes been described as aggressive.
Until Salesforce can prove Agentforce’s worth, investors will remain cautious. That means Salesforce’s stock will likely keep trading at a lower valuation compared to its peers – what analysts call a ‘depressed multiple’.
When it comes to the ecosystem, this is the same conversation many are having with customers – they’re intrigued by AI, but hesitant to commit budgets until they see ROI. If Salesforce doesn’t win those budget conversations, both Wall Street and consultants may feel the squeeze.
3. Agentforce Adoption Issues Continue
As mentioned, Salesforce is hot on Agentforce, and they’re going all-in on the success of their flagship AI product. The CRM giants want agents who can cover extensive workloads across different business areas, ultimately creating a “digital labor workforce” that works alongside (or potentially replaces) human employees.
Despite the ongoing marketing and product upscaling, adoption has struggled significantly. Since the product launch last year, Salesforce has been forced to package Agentforce with other products to improve adoption, even providing it for free – known as a freemium basis – in some cases.
There’s also been continued skepticism around deployments, with many businesses unsure about moving an agent from testing to real-life scenarios. Jefferies stresses that the KPI that matters most for Salesforce is “paying and live Agentforce customers”, which hasn’t reflected too well so far.
Salesforce has been fairly open with their numbers, recently stating in their Q2 earnings call that more than 6,000 customers are Agentforce live. But if you really compare that to Salesforce’s entire customer base – which is made up of hundreds of thousands of customers – it’s a relatively low portion of their existing base.
We have covered extensively at Salesforce Ben the roadblocks preventing widespread Agentforce adoption, from messy data to unclear ROI and scope creep, and Jefferies’ research underscores that these issues are still holding Salesforce back from broader adoption. Until Salesforce can show simple, replicable success stories, investors (and customers) will stay cautious.
4. Salesforce Is Outperforming Wall Street’s 10% CRPO Estimates
If Wall Street investors care about anything, it’s Salesforce’s Current Remaining Performance Obligations (CRPO). In simple terms, it’s the value of contracts Salesforce has already signed but not yet delivered – like a “backlog” of future revenue that’s locked in.
CRPOs are vital because they give a forward-looking snapshot of demand. If customers are signing long-term, multi-year commitments with Salesforce, then their CRPO rating goes up. If sales cycles shorten or customers start hesitating, the number goes down.
Per Jefferies, investors usually want to see CRPO growing by 10% or higher each year, and Salesforce is in a really good position right now, having just posted 11% CRPO growth.
While this is good news for Salesforce, investors still expect to see consistent growth every quarter. If Salesforce can consistently perform above 10%, it sends a strong message that the pipeline is healthy, that customers are signing longer-term deals, and that demand is holding up despite price increases and AI uncertainty.
5. Customers Push Back on Salesforce’s Price Hikes
Salesforce increased its list prices by 6% in June for Enterprise and Unlimited editions across Sales, Service, Field Service, and some industry clouds. This came as a shock to many in the ecosystem, as it’s not common for the cloud giant to raise costs like this for their customers.
Jefferies asked Salesforce’s consulting partners what they’re hearing from customers, and the majority said customers are pushing back on the price rise, with Jefferies estimating that 70% are challenging the new figures.
This resistance can come in many different forms, such as procurement delays, tougher renewal negotiations, demands for higher discounts, or customers flat-out questioning whether Salesforce’s AI add-ons justify the extra spend.
Salesforce’s fair pricing has always been one of its strengths, so such a significant pushback could create some significant issues for its product.
Customers have almost always accepted premium pricing in exchange for platform breadth and ecosystem support. If that dynamic changes and customers start seeing Salesforce as too expensive for what it delivers, then retention rates could weaken and upsell opportunities could dry up.
It also potentially shifts the dynamic in renewals. Instead of being about “how many more seats do you need?”, conversations will be about “which seats do you really need, and can you defend keeping them at a higher price?”
That’s a tougher environment for both Salesforce and its partners, and one that Jefferies is flagging as a near-term risk.
6. Salesforce’s Core Business Needs a “Second Wind”
For all the buzz around Agentforce at the moment, Salesforce is still very reliant on its “bread-and-butter” products – Sales Cloud and Service Cloud – to drive the majority of its revenue. These are the products that built Salesforce into a $40B+ company and continue to anchor most enterprise deployments.
However, Jefferies’ research has discovered that growth for both products is slowing. Both Cloud offerings are growing at around 8% year-on-year (YoY). By contrast, newer offerings such as Data Cloud and Platform are growing by double digits and enjoying triple-digit growth.
On the surface, 8% isn’t an awful figure to be performing at, but Jefferies’ research reiterates that the core products of competitors are enjoying much higher growth, which is disappointing for current investors.
The solution Jefferies points to? AI as a growth engine for the core. If Salesforce can prove that Agentforce isn’t just a side project, but a tool that supercharges Sales and Service Cloud, then investors will start to believe in a re-acceleration story.
Salesforce’s long-term success, according to Jefferies, depends on its ability to breathe new life into its core products. Without that “second wind,” even strong AI adoption won’t be enough to carry the whole business.
Final Thoughts
For the Salesforce ecosystem, this note reads like a mirror of what many professionals already see day-to-day. Customers are excited about AI, but hesitant; they’re questioning pricing, and they’re demanding proof before committing big budgets.
The good news is that if Salesforce does get it right – if Agentforce proves value, CRPO stays healthy, and core clouds re-accelerate – there’s plenty of upside for both the company and its ecosystem. Jefferies still sees Salesforce as a buy. But like everyone else, they’re waiting for proof.
