Salesforce chief rejects SaaS apocalypse narrative amid strong quarterly results

During the second-quarter earnings briefing, Salesforce chief Marc Benioff challenged the narrative of a looming SaaSpocalypse, arguing that AI has not diminished demand for the firm’s software. He noted that core offerings such as Agentforce, Sales, Services and Slack all posted year-over-year growth, while customer attrition hit a historic low. Benioff also referenced the company’s strongest net new annual order growth in four years and a 12% rise in subscription and support revenue, which included contributions from the Informatica acquisition.

Shares jumped more than 12% in after-hours trading, buoyed by a new collaboration with Anthropic on a Claude plugin and a reported $2.6 billion gain from the Anthropic stake. The partnership underscores Salesforce’s belief that its data and workflow platform will remain essential even as AI agents become a primary user interface. Benioff concluded that the dire predictions of a SaaS collapse have not come true for Salesforce.