- On analyst call, Benioff recounted a recent injury while on a scuba trip to Fakarava.
- The CEO brushed off the incident, while highlighting early traction for Agentforce.
- Wall Street sees Agentforce’s success as crucial for Salesforce’s growth.
There’s nothing like an AI-powered stock surge to take your mind off other problems.
On Tuesday, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff described a painful injury he sustained recently while visiting Fakarava, a remote atoll in the Pacific Ocean.
“Everybody knows I’ve been wearing a boot because I ruptured my achilles on a scuba diving trip to Fakarava, which is an incredible place in the Tuamotus in French Polynesia, for my birthday,” he said.
Benioff brushed it off swiftly, though.
“I’m sure we all know the international motto of Fakarava, which I have close to my heart, which is ‘I don’t give a Fakarava,'” he joked.
The CEO had reason to be in a buoyant mood. Salesforce stock jumped 10% in after-hours trading, putting it on course to hit a record on Wednesday morning.
The company’s $9.44 billion third-quarter revenue was up 8% compared to the same quarter last year, beating Wall Street expectations.
More importantly, Benioff shared some early signs of positive traction for Salesforce’s latest AI product, called Agentforce, which helps customers design AI agents.
The CEO said Salesforce “delivered” 200 deals for this new generative AI offering after it became generally available in the last week of the quarter.
This is a far cry from challenges Benioff grappled with back in 2022. It was two years ago nearly to the day that Salesforce announced Bret Taylor, co-CEO and likely successor to Benioff, would step down. Activist investors, including Starboard Value, were pushing Salesforce to improve profit margins.
“This call is the two-year anniversary of our transformation,” Benioff said on Tuesday’s call. “It’s been a financial transformation and it’s been a technology transformation.”
Benioff pointed to AI investments over the past two years, the integration of its core customer relationship management platform, and to increasing the number of engineers at the company.
In an October presentation, Starboard said Salesforce had significantly expanded operating margins and improved growth, but noted that the company can “continue to become more efficient and more profitable.” Starboard also said Agentforce has the potential to improve revenue growth.
Benioff boasted that Agentforce has an “incredible” pipeline of future transactions, but Salesforce still needs to prove it can get customers to buy the product, which has been a challenge for many generative AI tools so far.
Benioff touted what he called Salesforce’s “unfair advantage” over other generative AI tools because Agentforce is grounded on customer data, such as purchases and returns.
He also took the latest in a series of recent jabs at Microsoft’s generative AI assistant Copilot, calling it a “repackaged ChatGPT,” meaning a derivative of its partner and competitor OpenAI’s chatbot. A Microsoft executive recently responded to Benioff’s jabs in an interview with BI, saying “History tells us that when competitors talk about you, it’s because they’re behind.”
In written remarks after the Salesforce earnings call on Tuesday, Third Bridge analyst Charlie Miner said Salesforce needs a transformative catalyst like Agentforce to overcome the risk of “sliding into the stagnation typical of a mature, legacy software platform.”
“Despite Salesforce making AI its defining narrative, the true turning point hinges on Agentforce execution and adoption,” Miner wrote. “If it proves to be an AI winner and delivers as a revenue driver, Salesforce’s business could see a significant leap forward as early as mid-2025.”
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