BofA Slaps Salesforce With Underperform Rating, $160 Price Target: Is the AI Story Falling Flat?

Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) conscionable made 1 of the much contrarian calls connected Wall Street regarding the endeavor bundle giant. Analyst Tal Liani reinstated sum of Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) with an Underperform standing and a $160 terms target, a notable carnivore instrumentality connected a banal that inactive carries a statement mean terms people of $268.05. For semipermanent holders of Salesforce, the telephone sharpens a statement that's been simmering each year: is Agentforce really translating to durable gross growth?

The downgrade lands with Salesforce banal already nether pressure. CRM shares past traded adjacent $178.50, down 33% twelvemonth to date. Liani's presumption suggests further downside adjacent aft that reset.

The Analyst's Case

Liani acknowledges that Salesforce remains "a profoundly entrenched platform," yet argues the institution faces a structural reset driven by the AI transition. The carnivore thesis rests connected 3 concerns: muted nett caller lawsuit additions, constricted upsell potential, and an "underwhelming" AI monetization pathway.

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The deeper interest is pricing architecture. Agentforce and rival agentic tools could compress the per-seat subscription exemplary Salesforce was built on, arsenic AI agents regenerate seats alternatively than grow them. In Bank of America's framing, the moat is the past, not the future.

Company Snapshot

Salesforce closed fiscal 2026 with $41.5 cardinal successful revenue, up 10% twelvemonth implicit year, and posted FY26 EPS of $12.52. The institution guided fiscal 2027 gross to $45.8 cardinal to $46.2 billion.

Agentforce, the AI inaugural nether scrutiny, reached $800 cardinal successful yearly recurring gross (ARR) with 29,000 deals closed successful its archetypal 15 months. Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has leaned successful hard, with a planned $300 cardinal walk connected Anthropic tokens successful 2026.