CRM Analysis: The AI Selloff Has Made Salesforce a Value Trap or a Generational Buy — Earnings Next Week Will Decide
Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE: CRM) is trading at $187.79, nearly 43% below its 52-week high of $329.74, marking the deepest drawdown in the enterprise software giant's stock since the post-pandemic correction of 2022. The company, which commands roughly 23% of the global CRM market and generates over $40 billion in annualized revenue, has been swept up in a sector-wide rout driven by fears that AI-native competitors could disrupt incumbent SaaS business models. With shares hovering just above the 52-week low of $180.24, the stock is priced as though growth has stalled — yet the underlying business tells a more nuanced story. Salesforce reports fiscal Q4 2026 earnings on February 25, less than a week from now, and the stakes are unusually high. Revenue has been growing steadily, margins have expanded meaningfully, and the company's Agentforce AI platform reportedly drove a 330% surge in recurring AI-related revenue last quarter. Yet the market remains deeply skeptical, pricing CRM at just 25x trailing earnings — a valuation not seen since the company's earliest days as a public company. The question isn't whether Salesforce is cheap. It is. The question is whether cheap is justified, or whether this is the kind of dislocation that rewards patient investors handsomely. The bull and bear cases are both credible and well-articulated on Wall Street. Some analysts see a company leveraging its massive installed base and unmatched enterprise relationships to ride the AI wave. Others worry that the very automation Salesforce sells — AI agents replacing human workflows — could cannibalize seat-based licensing models faster than new revenue streams can compensate. What follows is a data-driven examination of which camp has the stronger case, with Q4 earnings as the imminent catalyst.