Why is the Salesforce AI stock struggling? A look at Agentforce and the market

It’s impossible to escape the hype around artificial intelligence these days. Companies like Nvidia are on an absolute tear, but the story gets a lot murkier when you start looking at enterprise software. A perfect example? The Salesforce AI stock, which has been giving the market some serious whiplash. On one hand, the company is making massive promises about its world-changing AI. On the other, investors and customers seem to be collectively holding their breath.

So, what's really going on? Why is there so much skepticism around Salesforce's AI plans when the tech is supposed to be the next big thing?

Let's break down the promise of Salesforce's Agentforce, the real reasons behind the market's cautious reaction, and what it all means for businesses trying to pick the right AI for their support teams. As it turns out, the biggest, flashiest platform isn't always the smartest move.

What is Salesforce AI?

Salesforce's journey with AI didn't just start, but their latest moves are a huge change in direction. For years, their AI efforts were all about Salesforce Einstein, a platform built to give you predictive analytics and insights inside their different cloud services. You can think of it as the smart layer that made the whole Salesforce ecosystem work a little better.

Now, Salesforce is going all-in on Agentforce. This is the next evolution: a set of "agentic AI" tools that are meant to do more than just offer insights. They're designed to actually take autonomous actions across the entire CRM platform. Pitched as a conversational AI assistant, Agentforce is supposed to be woven into every single workflow for sales, service, and marketing.

The vision is enormous. Salesforce wants to deliver a single, integrated AI that can get reps ready for meetings, summarize service calls, write marketing emails, and even build website landing pages. It’s all supposed to be grounded in a company's private data via the Salesforce Data Cloud, which they say keeps the AI's answers relevant and secure.

The promise: Why some analysts are bullish on the Salesforce AI stock

It’s not hard to see why there's a "bull case" for the Salesforce AI stock. The vision for Agentforce is incredibly ambitious. They're promising to embed a powerful AI assistant into every part of the world's number one AI CRM. If they can actually pull it off, the productivity boost could be off the charts.

The whole thing is built on two main pieces:

• Einstein Copilot: This is the ready-to-go conversational assistant that lives inside Salesforce apps. It can answer questions, summarize info, and suggest what users should do next.

• Einstein Copilot Studio: This is where you can get your hands dirty with customization. It gives companies the tools to build their own prompts and skills, and even plug in different AI models to make the assistant fit their specific needs.

And they’ve had some early wins to brag about. Shortly after launch, Salesforce said it had closed over 8,000 deals involving Agentforce, and news outlets were buzzing about a pipeline with thousands more. This early traction got analysts excited. Firms like Goldman Sachs and Bank of America started raising their price targets, calling Agentforce a major driver of future growth. They’re picturing a future where Salesforce cements its spot as one of the most important software companies on the planet, cruising toward $50 billion in revenue.

The reality: Unpacking the skepticism around the Salesforce AI stock

Despite the grand vision and some positive headlines, the market is still hesitant. The Salesforce AI stock has been up and down, which points to a deeper doubt about whether the company can turn its AI dreams into actual money anytime soon. Here’s the "bear case," or the other side of the story.

The "enthusiasm gap"

There's a pretty big difference between how vendors are talking about AI agents and how potential customers are feeling about them. As publications like the Wall Street Journal and Forbes have noted, a lot of CIOs and IT leaders are still on the fence. They’re worried about how reliable AI agents are, what happens when they make mistakes, and what the real return on investment looks like.

This has led to a lot of cautious dipping-toes-in-the-water instead of full-on adoption. While most companies are experimenting, very few are ready to dive in headfirst and write a blank check until they see hard proof that these tools work perfectly and deliver real, measurable value.

The slow road to monetization

This customer skepticism leads directly to a slow timeline for revenue. Even though Salesforce has closed thousands of AI-related deals, their own executives have admitted that Agentforce will only make a "modest contribution to revenue" in fiscal 2026. They don’t expect a more serious impact until the year after that.

For investors who are used to the lightning-fast pace of the AI world, that’s a long, long time to wait, especially when other companies are showing results much faster. This delay creates a fog of uncertainty and makes it tough to justify the stock's high price based on AI hype alone.

Platform complexity

Finally, there’s the sheer complexity of it all. Salesforce is a massive, sprawling ecosystem. Adding a powerful new AI layer like Agentforce isn't as simple as flipping a switch. It’s a huge, expensive, and time-consuming project that requires deep integration and a ton of customization.

This approach basically locks customers into the Salesforce universe. To really get the benefits of Agentforce, you have to put your data in their Data Cloud and run your workflows in their apps. For companies that use a mix of different best-in-class tools, this is a huge barrier and brings up a very real fear of being stuck with one vendor forever.

Beyond Salesforce: A practical path to AI automation

So, what should a business that just wants to use AI to improve its support operations do? The struggles facing Salesforce highlight a pretty basic choice: you can either bet the farm on a massive, all-in-one platform and wait for it to be ready, or you can take a more nimble approach with specialized AI tools that plug into the systems you already use.

For most companies, the second path is faster, cheaper, and way less risky. Platforms like eesel AI are built to start providing value on day one by connecting directly to your existing helpdesks like Zendesk, Freshdesk, and Intercom. This completely sidesteps the need for a painful and expensive migration into a single vendor's world.

Here’s how this approach deals with the exact problems holding back platforms like Salesforce:

1. Go live in minutes, not months: Forget about long implementation projects and mandatory consulting fees. With eesel AI, the onboarding is designed to be self-serve. You can connect your helpdesk, point the AI to your knowledge sources, and have a working agent up and running in minutes, often without ever having to talk to a salesperson.

2. Test with confidence and zero risk: You’re right to be worried about AI reliability. That’s why eesel AI’s simulation mode is so important. You can safely test your AI agent on thousands of your past tickets in a "sandbox" environment. This gives you an accurate prediction of its performance, resolution rate, and how much money it will save you before it ever talks to a real customer.

3. Unify your existing knowledge, no matter where it is: A great AI agent needs great knowledge. But unlike platforms that want you to move all your data into their proprietary cloud, eesel AI connects to all your scattered sources instantly. It learns from your past tickets, help center articles, and internal wikis in places like Confluence or Google Docs to give accurate, context-aware answers right from the start.

Here's a quick look at how the two approaches stack up:

Feature	The "Big Platform" Approach (e.g., Salesforce)	The "Integrator" Approach (e.g., eesel AI)
Setup Time	Months to years; needs a lot of professional help.	Minutes; completely self-serve with simple integrations.
Tool Dependency	Locks you into one vendor's ecosystem.	Works with the helpdesk and knowledge sources you already have.
Testing & Rollout	Hard to know how it'll do before going live; "big bang" launch.	Powerful simulation on past data; controlled, gradual rollout.
Pricing Model	Complicated, often bundled with expensive software suites.	Transparent and predictable; no fees for every ticket it solves.

Look beyond the Salesforce AI stock price for real AI value

The turbulence in the Salesforce AI stock isn't a sign that AI is a bust. It’s a reflection of just how hard, expensive, and risky it is to build and roll out these massive, all-in-one AI platforms. The market is asking a fair question: is this long, complicated path really the right one?

The good news is, you don't have to wait around for that question to be answered.

This video offers a balanced valuation of Salesforce, considering both its traditional software business and its emerging AI potential, relevant to the discussion on the Salesforce AI stock.

The promise of AI is very real, but the smartest way for most businesses to get there is by adopting flexible, powerful tools that improve their current workflows, not force them to start over from scratch. The future of customer support automation is already here, and it’s a lot more accessible than you might think. You can start automating repetitive tickets and giving your team superpowers today with an AI agent that works with the tools you already know and love.

Set up your AI Agent in minutes with eesel AI