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Salesforce, Inc. (CRM) Pushes AI Agentforce Despite Analyst Downgrades

We recently published a list of Top 10 AI Stocks in the Spotlight This Week. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Salesforce Inc (NYSE:CRM) stands against other top 10 AI stocks in the spotlight this week.

According to investment firm Morgan Stanley, electricity demand is going to prove to be resilient regardless of any recession that may come into play from Trump’s tariff policies. This is because data centers need a lot of power, and demand will not go down despite a downturn or because of efficiency gains from Ant Group, DeepSeek, and others. While it is true that industrial demand may dip in the short term, bringing manufacturing back to the US will help solve this problem.

“We believe power demand trends are more durable than in prior cycles, in part due to the inelasticity of data center demand. Industrial demand could decline in the near term, but reshoring of manufacturing is a long-term tailwind.”

-Analysts led by Andrew Percoco.

READ ALSO: 10 AI Stocks Surging on News Today and 10 AI Stocks You Shouldn’t Overlook Right Now.

A similar analysis by a Bloomberg report forecast that US power demand coming from data centers could swell 20-40% in 2025, with strong double-digit growth likely to persist in 2026-30.

While Morgan Stanley does acknowledge that rapid policy changes may have deep implications for large capital investments, it also forecasts electricity consumption from artificial intelligence growing tenfold by 2028.

“With this in mind, we do not want to minimize the risk of a near-term ‘shock’ in demand. This could translate into slowing order growth for some companies.”

History has shown energy stocks to remain resilient despite economic downturns. The firm noted how, since 1960, demand has fallen by just 0.2% on average during such periods.

“Utilities screen favorable in a recession given their defensive nature,”

That said, it is optimistic about strong spending on AI infrastructure from tech giants such as Meta, Amazon, and Alphabet. This is because hyperscalers want to have a lead in artificial intelligence and also because they have large product pipelines that need GPUs.

For this article, we selected AI stocks by going through news articles, stock analysis, and press releases. These stocks are also popular among hedge funds. The hedge fund data is as of Q4 2024.

Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points  (see more details here).

A customer service team in an office setting using the company’s Customer 360 platform to communicate with customers.

Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 162

Salesforce Inc (NYSE:CRM) is a cloud-based CRM company that has gained popularity after it unveiled its AI-powered platform called Agentforce.

On April 17, BNP Paribas Exane lowered the firm’s price target on the stock to $305 from $360 and kept an “Outperform” rating on the shares.

Two days prior, Morgan Stanley also lowered the firm’s price target on the stock to $393 from $405 and kept an “Overweight” rating on the shares. The rating comes amid firms adjusting risk/rewards amid tariff uncertainty and what may have already been reflected in shares.

Overall, CRM ranks 6th on our list of top 10 AI stocks in the spotlight this week. While we acknowledge the potential of CRM as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. There is an AI stock that went up since the beginning of 2025, while popular AI stocks lost around 25%. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than CRM but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about this cheapest AI stock.

READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stocks To Buy Now and 30 Best Stocks to Buy Now According to Billionaires.

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.

The $250 Trillion AI Hype is Real. A few years from now, you’ll probably wish you’d bought this stock.

When Jeff Bezos said that one breakthrough technology would shape Amazon’s destiny, even Wall Street’s biggest analysts were caught off guard.

Fast forward a year and Amazon’s new CEO Andy Jassy described generative AI as a “once-in-a-lifetime” technology that is already being used across Amazon to reinvent customer experiences.

At the 8th Future Investment Initiative conference, Elon Musk predicted that by 2040 there would be at least 10 billion humanoid robots, with each priced between $20,000 and $25,000.

Do the math. According to Musk, this technology could be worth $250 trillion by 2040.

Put another way, that’s roughly equal to:

  • 175 Teslas
  • 107 Amazons
  • 140 Metas
  • 84 Googles
  • 65 Microsofts
  • And 55 Nvidias

And here’s the wild part — this $250 trillion wave isn’t tied to one company, but to an entire ecosystem of AI innovators set to reshape the global economy.

It’s a leap so massive, it could reshape how businesses, governments, and consumers operate worldwide.

Even if that $250 trillion figure sounds ambitious, major firms like PwC and McKinsey still see AI unlocking multi-trillion-dollar potential.

How could anything be worth that much?

The answer lies in a breakthrough so powerful it’s redefining how humanity works, learns, and creates.

And this breakthrough has already set off a frenzy among hedge funds and Wall Street’s top investors.

What most investors don’t realize is that one under-owned company holds the key to this $250 trillion revolution.

In fact, Verge argues this company’s supercheap AI technology should concern rivals.

Before I reveal the details, let’s talk about how some of the richest people on the planet are positioning themselves.

  • Bill Gates sees artificial intelligence as the “biggest technological advance in my lifetime,” more transformative than the internet or personal computer, capable of improving healthcare, education, and addressing climate change.
  • Larry Ellison — through Oracle, is spending billions on Nvidia chips and partnering with Cohere to embed generative AI across Oracle’s cloud and apps.
  • Warren Buffett — not known for tech hype — says this breakthrough could have a ‘hugely beneficial social impact.

When billionaires from Silicon Valley to Wall Street line up behind the same idea — you know it’s worth paying attention to.

Even as we admire what Tesla, Nvidia, Alphabet, and Microsoft have built, we believe an even greater opportunity lies elsewhere…

But the real story isn’t Nvidia — it’s a much smaller company quietly improving the critical technology that makes this entire revolution possible.

And judging by what I’m hearing from both Silicon Valley insiders and Wall Street veterans…

This prediction might not be bold at all:

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