Salesforce Stock Downgraded: Is Agentforce Distracting Salesforce’s Core Business?

Salesforce saw their stock drop by 4.3%, closing at $236.36 yesterday following a negative rating from Wall Street investment bank D.A. Davidson. The company moved Salesforce’s stock rating from “neutral” (not believing it would go up or down much) to “underperform” (believing it will do worse than other companies).

The firm believes that the CRM giant’s current focus on artificial intelligence is leaving their core platform neglected and that their all-in focus on Agentforce is currently “premature”.

From “Bullish” to Bearish: The Sentiment Changes on Wall Street

Wall Street analysts have expressed varied opinions on Salesforce’s outlook in recent months. While some expressed high expectations going into 2025, with two firms “bullishly” picking Salesforce as a top 2025 stock pick, others have remained skeptical of Salesforce’s “hard pivot” towards an agentic CRM future.

Salesforce have faced continued turbulence in the stock market in recent months, experiencing a 5% stock price drop in February and a consecutive three-week stock price drop in early March. So far, Salesforce’s Agentforce capabilities haven’t fully captured market confidence.

Pietro Piga, a Salesforce Business Analyst, spoke to Salesforce Ben late last year and boldly claimed that “Agentforce will generate a lot of initial excitement but will burn out quickly for many. 90% of stakeholders – including both customers and consultancies – are unprepared.” 

What we saw yesterday could be seen as the early signs of this “burnout”, with D.A. Davidson going as far as to knock Salesforce off of their “Best-of-Breed Bison” list – a curated group of top-performing, high-quality stocks they believe are built to lead and last.

It was only in June last year that D.A. Davidson added Salesforce to this list, singing the praises of the CRM company and emphasizing that they were well-equipped to maintain its market share. Just under a year later, the faith has been lost. 

Agentforce Adoption Slow, But Needs More Time

The expectation of global Agentforce adaptation hasn’t hit the ground running as Salesforce first expected or promised at Dreamforce last year. We have seen small steps towards progress, with around 5,000 Agentforce deals closed since its release, as well as progressive upgrades to the tool already in 2025.

However, many are still apprehensive for several reasons. The pricing model is still confusing, many still need to get their orgs in check, and there isn’t enough guidance for people who are looking to get started. 

So truthfully, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that some analysts may already be turning on Salesforce’s stock this year. Even Salesforce’s Chief Financial Officer, Amy Weaver, expects “modest” sales of Agentforce over the next year. Overall, the sentiment around Salesforce and Agentforce still isn’t great, which will draw criticism from some Wall Street analysts.

But this downgrade isn’t to say that Salesforce isn’t an attractive stock for the majority of Wall Street analysts.

According to CNN Business, the median 12-month price target for Salesforce (CRM) is $380, which suggests a potential upside of about 60% from its current trading price of around $236.60. ​

This indicates that, while D.A. Davidson has expressed concerns leading to their downgrade, the broader analyst community remains optimistic about Salesforce’s future performance.

Agentforce may not be growing as fast as first suggested, but previous Salesforce products have famously taken time to find their wings. Data Cloud went through numerous iterations over many years before turning into a primetime product and is now the leader of Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for customer data platforms for the second consecutive year.

So, while Salesforce will undoubtedly aim to dominate the B2B AI space just as they did with CRM, it won’t happen overnight.

Final Thoughts

Criticism of Salesforce has come in many different forms as of late. Microsoft thinks SaaS will die soon, the majority of the ecosystem doesn’t think Agentforce is ready as of yet, and now some analysts are telling investors that the stocks won’t grow and could lose value.

It hasn’t been the dream start to 2025, but there’s still a lot of this year left to prove doubters wrong – much like they’ve notoriously done before.