Marc Benioff is getting his mojo back as Salesforce's AI strength quiets skeptics

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has repeatedly shot back at critics who say the company is doomed because of artificial intelligence. Wall Street wasn't buying his story until the company's beat-and-raise earnings report this week, which followed the rehiring of key executives who had left for OpenAI. "This SaaSpocalypse narrative has been such nonsense," Benioff told CNBC's Jim Cramer after earnings.

For the better part of a year, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has been hearing that his company could get wiped out by AI. He's scoffed anytime someone has asked him about it. "This is not our first SaaSpocalypse," Benioff said on an earnings call in February. "We have been through many SaaSpocalypses." Those comments followed a 21% slump in the company's stock price last year, a trend that continued for most of 2026, as Salesforce and the rest of the software sector underperformed the broader market. With Anthropic and OpenAI rolling out a dizzying number of artificial intelligence models and services for businesses, concerns grew about the sustainability of traditional software. But if this week is any indication, Wall Street may finally be coming back around to Benioff's side.

On Thursday, Salesforce shares shot up almost 23%, their best day since 2020 and second-biggest jump since the company went public in 2004. The rally erased most of the stock's loss for the year, though it's still down about 5%. Investors were responding to a beat-and-raise quarter and a new tie-up with Anthropic that's dubbed "Claudeforce." The earnings announcement was fortuitously timed, coming just as reports were surfacing of high-level OpenAI employees joining the company. In a post on X last week, Benioff said Kaylin Voss was returning to Salesforce after just five months at OpenAI, where she was vice president of the Americas. Peter Doolan, who was there for about the same amount of time as global head of AI transformation, is also returning.

According to a report on Wednesday from The Information, citing a person familiar with the matter, another 22 former Salesforce employees at OpenAI are in talks to return. "Boomerang talent is a celebrated part of our culture," a Salesforce spokesperson said in an emailed statement, without commenting on those coming from OpenAI. An OpenAI spokesperson didn't respond to a request for comment.

In Wednesday's earnings report, Salesforce said revenue for the quarter climbed 11% from a year earlier, topping estimates. Its forecast for the current period calls for closer to 12% growth at the midpoint of the range, also just ahead of expectations. It's by no means runaway growth, and it's about in line with where Salesforce has been over the past four years. But the numbers were good enough to ease some investor fears, especially with annualized revenue from Salesforce's Agentforce AI products soaring 240% from a year ago to over $1.5 billion. "This SaaSpocalypse narrative has been such nonsense," Benioff told CNBC's Jim Cramer after the company reported results. "Frontier models depend on CRM. They don't replace it."

Salesforce's bottom line is directly benefiting from AI, as the company recorded a $2.6 billion gain from its three-year-old investment in Anthropic. That figure could go up, as Anthropic is marching toward a highly anticipated IPO.