Investors Eye Profitability Signals from AI Companies Amid Market Volatility
Written by Emily J. Thompson, Senior Investment Analyst
Updated: Nov 28 2025
0mins
Should l Buy CRM?
Source: Newsfilter
- Market Rebound: The S&P 500 has risen about 16% in 2025, buoyed by expectations of a Federal Reserve rate cut in December, indicating investor confidence in economic recovery, yet caution is warranted regarding signs of waning risk appetite.
- Bitcoin Volatility: Bitcoin's price has plummeted below $90,000 from over $125,000 in early October, serving as a risk proxy for equities, which investors are monitoring closely for potential market sentiment shifts.
- AI Investment Return Concerns: Technology stocks are under pressure due to doubts about the timing of returns on massive AI infrastructure investments, particularly as Alphabet's shares surged following the launch of its new AI model Gemini 3, pushing its market value to nearly $4 trillion.
- Delayed Economic Data: Many economic releases have been postponed due to a 43-day U.S. government shutdown, leaving investors to navigate uncertainty through year-end, with a complete economic picture expected only in January.
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Analyst Views on CRM
Wall Street analysts forecast CRM stock price to rise
39 Analyst Rating
29 Buy
9 Hold
1 Sell
Moderate Buy
Current: 186.670
Low
223.00
Averages
326.40
High
405.00
Current: 186.670
Low
223.00
Averages
326.40
High
405.00
About CRM
Salesforce, Inc. is a customer relationship management (CRM) technology company. Its artificial intelligence (AI) powered Agentforce 360 Platform offers sales, service, marketing, commerce, collaboration, data management, integration, analytics, and information technology (IT) service solutions. It enables customers to build and deploy digital labor for employees and customers, leveraging autonomous AI agents across business functions. Its service offerings include Agentforce Sales, Agentforce Service, Agentforce 360 Platform, Slack and Others. The Agentforce Sales provides sales capabilities and tools built for organizations across prospecting, sales engagement, team collaboration, sales analytics and AI, sales programs, sales performance, partner management, and revenue and orders. The Agentforce Service provides field service solutions that enable companies to connect service agents, dispatchers and mobile employees through platform to schedule, dispatch and manage jobs.
About the author
Emily J. Thompson
Emily J. Thompson, a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) with 12 years in investment research, graduated with honors from the Wharton School. Specializing in industrial and technology stocks, she provides in-depth analysis for Intellectia’s earnings and market brief reports.
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- High-Frequency Trading Insight: Within Salesforce, the $180 strike put option has seen 34,250 contracts traded today, representing about 3.4 million shares, reflecting investor expectations of potential price declines that could impact stock volatility.
- Chevron Options Activity: Chevron Corporation's options trading volume reached 75,380 contracts, approximately 7.5 million shares, accounting for 49.6% of its average daily trading volume over the past month, showcasing active trading interest in its stock.
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- Structural Competitive Advantage: BTIG analysts noted that Slackbot provides Salesforce with a structural competitive advantage, redefining every app within its customer relationship management platform, with Slack emerging as the new engagement layer that enhances user experience.
- Integrated Functional Innovations: Slackbot integrates enterprise search and utilizes Model Context Protocol to connect with third-party agents like Anthropic's Claude and OpenAI's ChatGPT, streamlining task management and customer record updates, thereby improving operational efficiency.
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- Corporate Motivation Issues: Ben Wiener from Cognizant highlights that AI does not change corporate incentives but amplifies existing cost-cutting strategies, resulting in a customer service experience that fails to improve and often frustrates customers.
- Limitations of Automation: Research shows many conversations with AI still escalate to human agents, and when AI cannot resolve issues or clearly explain decisions, customers often perceive it as an additional barrier rather than a solution.
- Market Outlook: Zendesk CEO Tom Eggemeier predicts that within three years, 50% of digital customer service interactions will be handled by AI, rising to 80% within five years, indicating ongoing investment and application of AI in customer service by businesses.
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- AI Paradox Unveiled: Jackson's analysis of 716 SaaS earnings calls over two decades reveals that companies in the top quintile of AI language density underperformed the bottom quintile by 5.4 percentage points over the following 90 days, indicating an overreaction to AI hype in the market.
- Shifting Market Sentiment: He argues that many SaaS firms are overvalued due to growth narratives driven by AI, facing risks of slowing organic growth, rising customer acquisition costs, and deteriorating pricing power, particularly as enterprise spending tightens.
- Short Position Strategy: Jackson has established short positions in Salesforce, Asana, DocuSign, and Atlassian, all of which are trading at multi-year lows, with Asana hitting an all-time low, reflecting a pessimistic outlook on their future performance.
- Comparative Industry Analysis: While companies like CrowdStrike and Zscaler benefit from AI advancements, Jackson believes the market is punishing all related firms too harshly, leading to misjudgments in investment choices among investors.
See More
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- ServiceNow's Strategic Response: Despite a 35% stock drop in 2026, ServiceNow has enhanced its platform's competitiveness by launching an autonomous workforce product that utilizes AI to handle over 90% of employee IT requests, thereby maintaining its market position in the AI era.
- Sustained Revenue Growth: ServiceNow reported a 21% year-over-year growth in Q4 2025, with sales reaching $3.6 billion, and expects a 22% increase in subscription sales in Q1 2026, demonstrating strong business resilience.
- Salesforce's AI Integration: Salesforce achieved record revenue of $11.2 billion in Q4 fiscal 2026, with Agentforce's annual recurring revenue soaring 169% year-over-year to $800 million, indicating high customer adoption of its AI solutions.
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- Market Reaction: In 2026, Wall Street's fears that AI could render some software companies obsolete led to a significant sell-off in software stocks, with ServiceNow and Salesforce experiencing declines of 35% and 32% respectively, reflecting a pessimistic outlook on their future prospects.
- AI Integration: Despite the threats, ServiceNow has enhanced its market competitiveness by launching an autonomous workforce product that utilizes data and knowledge from its platform, enabling AI agents to handle over 90% of employee IT requests, thus improving efficiency.
- Financial Performance: ServiceNow reported a 21% year-over-year growth in Q4 2025, with sales reaching $3.6 billion, including $3.5 billion in subscriptions, indicating stable recurring revenue, and it expects Q1 2026 subscription sales to rise by 22% to around $3.7 billion.
- Salesforce Growth: Salesforce achieved record revenue of $11.2 billion in Q4 fiscal 2026, with Agentforce's annual recurring revenue increasing by 169% year-over-year to $800 million, demonstrating growing customer adoption of its AI solutions, while also raising its dividend by 6% to $0.44 per share in February, enhancing its investment appeal.
See More
Salesforce and Chevron Options Trading Volume Surge
- Salesforce Options Volume: Salesforce Inc saw options trading volume of 80,242 contracts, equating to approximately 8 million shares, which represents 60.3% of its average daily trading volume over the past month, indicating strong market interest in its future performance.
- High-Frequency Trading Insight: Within Salesforce, the $180 strike put option has seen 34,250 contracts traded today, representing about 3.4 million shares, reflecting investor expectations of potential price declines that could impact stock volatility.
- Chevron Options Activity: Chevron Corporation's options trading volume reached 75,380 contracts, approximately 7.5 million shares, accounting for 49.6% of its average daily trading volume over the past month, showcasing active trading interest in its stock.
- Put Option Trading: For Chevron, the $195 strike put option has traded 5,496 contracts today, representing around 549,600 shares, indicating a cautious sentiment among investors regarding its future performance, which may influence its stock price trajectory.
See More
Salesforce's Slackbot Event Highlights Significant Productivity Boost
- Productivity Boost: At the Slackbot event, Salesforce showcased a significant productivity boost from AI, with Slackbot capable of handling meeting notes, operating directly on users' desktops, and leveraging deep research and memory capabilities to enhance work efficiency.
- Structural Competitive Advantage: BTIG analysts noted that Slackbot provides Salesforce with a structural competitive advantage, redefining every app within its customer relationship management platform, with Slack emerging as the new engagement layer that enhances user experience.
- Integrated Functional Innovations: Slackbot integrates enterprise search and utilizes Model Context Protocol to connect with third-party agents like Anthropic's Claude and OpenAI's ChatGPT, streamlining task management and customer record updates, thereby improving operational efficiency.
- Optimistic Market Outlook: BTIG anticipates that with the rollout of Slackbot and upcoming feature releases, Salesforce's organic revenue growth is expected to reaccelerate, leading to an optimistic outlook for its future performance, with a price target set at $255.
See More
AI Customer Service Faces Consumer Discontent
- Poor User Experience: According to the Qualtrics 2026 Customer Experience Trends Report, nearly one in five consumers reported no benefits from using AI for customer service, a failure rate almost four times higher than general AI use, indicating significant barriers in AI's application in customer service.
- Corporate Motivation Issues: Ben Wiener from Cognizant highlights that AI does not change corporate incentives but amplifies existing cost-cutting strategies, resulting in a customer service experience that fails to improve and often frustrates customers.
- Limitations of Automation: Research shows many conversations with AI still escalate to human agents, and when AI cannot resolve issues or clearly explain decisions, customers often perceive it as an additional barrier rather than a solution.
- Market Outlook: Zendesk CEO Tom Eggemeier predicts that within three years, 50% of digital customer service interactions will be handled by AI, rising to 80% within five years, indicating ongoing investment and application of AI in customer service by businesses.
See More
Skepticism on SaaS Companies' AI Hype
- AI Paradox Unveiled: Jackson's analysis of 716 SaaS earnings calls over two decades reveals that companies in the top quintile of AI language density underperformed the bottom quintile by 5.4 percentage points over the following 90 days, indicating an overreaction to AI hype in the market.
- Shifting Market Sentiment: He argues that many SaaS firms are overvalued due to growth narratives driven by AI, facing risks of slowing organic growth, rising customer acquisition costs, and deteriorating pricing power, particularly as enterprise spending tightens.
- Short Position Strategy: Jackson has established short positions in Salesforce, Asana, DocuSign, and Atlassian, all of which are trading at multi-year lows, with Asana hitting an all-time low, reflecting a pessimistic outlook on their future performance.
- Comparative Industry Analysis: While companies like CrowdStrike and Zscaler benefit from AI advancements, Jackson believes the market is punishing all related firms too harshly, leading to misjudgments in investment choices among investors.
See More
Investment Opportunities Amid AI Disruption
- ServiceNow's Strategic Response: Despite a 35% stock drop in 2026, ServiceNow has enhanced its platform's competitiveness by launching an autonomous workforce product that utilizes AI to handle over 90% of employee IT requests, thereby maintaining its market position in the AI era.
- Sustained Revenue Growth: ServiceNow reported a 21% year-over-year growth in Q4 2025, with sales reaching $3.6 billion, and expects a 22% increase in subscription sales in Q1 2026, demonstrating strong business resilience.
- Salesforce's AI Integration: Salesforce achieved record revenue of $11.2 billion in Q4 fiscal 2026, with Agentforce's annual recurring revenue soaring 169% year-over-year to $800 million, indicating high customer adoption of its AI solutions.
- Attractive Investment Timing: With both companies' stock prices nearing 52-week lows, the current drop in their price-to-earnings ratios presents an appealing investment opportunity in ServiceNow and Salesforce, especially given their ongoing healthy business performance.
See More
Software Stocks Sell-Off Due to AI Threats
- Market Reaction: In 2026, Wall Street's fears that AI could render some software companies obsolete led to a significant sell-off in software stocks, with ServiceNow and Salesforce experiencing declines of 35% and 32% respectively, reflecting a pessimistic outlook on their future prospects.
- AI Integration: Despite the threats, ServiceNow has enhanced its market competitiveness by launching an autonomous workforce product that utilizes data and knowledge from its platform, enabling AI agents to handle over 90% of employee IT requests, thus improving efficiency.
- Financial Performance: ServiceNow reported a 21% year-over-year growth in Q4 2025, with sales reaching $3.6 billion, including $3.5 billion in subscriptions, indicating stable recurring revenue, and it expects Q1 2026 subscription sales to rise by 22% to around $3.7 billion.
- Salesforce Growth: Salesforce achieved record revenue of $11.2 billion in Q4 fiscal 2026, with Agentforce's annual recurring revenue increasing by 169% year-over-year to $800 million, demonstrating growing customer adoption of its AI solutions, while also raising its dividend by 6% to $0.44 per share in February, enhancing its investment appeal.
See More
