Salesforce has reported a 13% year-over-year increase in fourth-quarter revenue, reaching $10.7 billion, with the full fiscal year revenue rising 10% to $41.5 billion.
The significant results were bolstered by Salesforce’s $8 billion acquisition of data management company Informatica, which closed in May last year. Net income for the quarter was $7.46 billion. For the current fiscal year, the company provided forward guidance, projecting revenue between $45.8 billion and $46.2 billion, representing a growth rate of 10% to 11% compared to the prior year. Salesforce also reported that its remaining performance obligation (RPO) exceeded $72 billion, a metric representing revenue under contract that has not yet been recognized.
Despite concerns from investors that AI agents may render per-employee-seat business models obsolete, a concern termed the “SaaSpocalypse,” Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff remained optimistic. During the earnings call, Benioff referenced the term at least six times, stating, “You’ve heard about the SaaSpocalypse? And it isn’t our first. We’ve had a few of them.” He added, “If there is a SaaSpocalypse, it may be eaten by the Sasquatch because there are a lot of companies using a lot of SaaS because it just got better with agents.”
In response to investor concerns and to provide support for its shares, Salesforce announced a dividend increase of nearly 6% to $0.44 per share and launched a new $50 billion share buyback program. These actions are intended to provide a sturdy buyer for shares and reduce the total number of shares in circulation.
The earnings call was modified to include on-camera interviews with three Salesforce customers, where Benioff interviewed the CEO of home appliance company SharkNinja, the CEO of Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, and the CEO of SaaStr, a software industry conference and media company. These executives endorsed Salesforce’s AI agent products during the call, highlighting their value and effectiveness.
Salesforce also introduced a new metric called “agentic work units” (AWU), designed to measure whether an AI agent completed a task, rather than simply counting the volume of tokens processed. The company reported processing 19 trillion tokens in the last quarter. Salesforce president and CMO Patrick Stokes explained that AWU aims to measure verifiable work, such as an agent writing to a record, rather than less valuable outputs like generating a poem.
The company presented an architectural vision where SaaS providers own the top of the technology stack, with AI model makers functioning as commoditized engines at the bottom. This view directly contrasts with a vision released by OpenAI earlier this month regarding its enterprise agent, Frontier, which places OpenAI’s systems at the top of the stack, with SaaS providers positioned at the bottom as data engines.
During the call, Benioff wore a black leather jacket, echoing the signature attire of Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, a notable observation that garnered attention.
