Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM)’s shares, like other stocks, haven’t performed well in today’s AI era. They are down by 30.9% over the past year and by 29.6% year-to-date. Cramer has discussed Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) several times over the past couple of months. Most of his remarks have focused on the split in investor sentiment about the firm’s AI Agentforce business and its other businesses. The CNBC TV host has expressed faith in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) CEO Marc Benioff on multiple occasions and asserted that viewers pay heed to his remarks about the company’s performance. He has also expressed hope for the firm to pivot more towards becoming an AI company as opposed to a software-as-a-service company. However, in this appearance, he discussed Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM)’s share price performance:
“Well Salesforce is, ooh, you know when you knew you were in trouble on Friday. When Salesforce started going up. It was like, oh they’re taking them up, David, they’re going Workday.”
While Cramer’s remarks appear to be off-the-cuff, they actually point towards the fundamental split in market sentiment for software stocks. Traditional SaaS firms with limited AI exposure have struggled due to AI’s ability to enable businesses to easily code. Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM)’s Agentforce platform ties into this debate. The firm’s bulls believe that its Agentforce platform is producing sufficient growth and adoption to point towards AI growth that might not be fully priced in by the shares. They also point toward five consecutive earnings beats, $1 billion in annual recurring revenue in the first half of 2026 and an established customer base that the firm could leverage to generate hefty AI revenue.
On the flip side, the bears believe that Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM)’s current remaining performance obligations (cRPOs) are growing unsatisfactorily. cRPO represents the contracted revenue that a SaaS firm can recognize over the next 12 months. They add that Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM)’s traditional businesses, such as Tableau and Commerce, are weak in today’s AI-driven era. Finally, the bears also argue that as AI reduces enterprise headcount, Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM)’s traditional seat model could also struggle.
Shifting towards the hedge funds, 115 out of the 1,041 hedge funds part of Insider Monkey’s database held a stake in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM). The figure dropped to 101 out of 1,022 in Q1 2026, to indicate that hedge funds might be in the bearish, or at least the cautious, camp. The bearish sentiment is also reflected in its short interest, as 6.56% of the float was short as of mid-July. Yet, while these metrics might be worrisome, some hedge funds made interesting moves in Q1. Harris Associates bumped its stake in Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) by 53% to $2.7 billion, while Arrowstreet Capital bumped it up by 131% to $2.3 billion.
While we acknowledge the potential of CRM to grow, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and have limited downside risk. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than CRM and that has 100x upside potential, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
READ NEXT: Jim Cramer Draws the Line on NVIDIA in China: Why National Security Comes First and Jim Cramer Defends His Dell Stance as Investors Complain About Missing Out.
Disclosure: None.
Hedge Fund Resource Center