Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff: We’ve faced SaaS downturns before

Salesforce’s Bold Response to AI Disruption Concerns

Determined to reassure investors that the rise of artificial intelligence won’t spell its downfall, Salesforce went all out during its fourth-quarter earnings announcement on Wednesday.

The company delivered impressive results, posting $10.7 billion in revenue for the quarter—a 13% increase compared to the same period last year. For the full fiscal year, Salesforce reached $41.5 billion in revenue, up 10% year-over-year, a boost partly attributed to its $8 billion acquisition of Informatica last May.

Net income came in at $7.46 billion. Looking ahead, Salesforce projected annual revenue between $45.8 billion and $46.2 billion, representing growth of 10% to 11%. The company also reported that its remaining performance obligation (RPO)—a measure of contracted revenue yet to be recognized—exceeded $72 billion.

Investor Skepticism Amid “Saaspocalypse” Fears

Despite these strong figures, software-as-a-service (SaaS) stocks, with Salesforce as a leading example, have faced significant pressure. Many investors worry that the emergence of AI agents could disrupt traditional per-seat subscription models, potentially rendering them obsolete—a scenario some have dubbed the “Saaspocalypse.”

This anxiety was so prevalent that CEO Marc Benioff referenced the term multiple times during the earnings call. “You’ve heard about the SaaSpocalypse? And it isn’t our first. We’ve had a few of them,” Benioff remarked. He later joked, “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.”

New Initiatives to Win Over Shareholders

To further demonstrate its resilience, Salesforce announced a nearly 6% increase in its dividend, raising it to $0.44 per share, and unveiled a massive $50 billion share buyback program. Such moves are typically well-received by investors, as they can support the stock price by reducing the number of shares in circulation.

TechCrunch Founder Summit 2026

Save up to $300 or 30% on tickets to the TechCrunch Founder Summit!

Join over 1,000 founders and investors in Boston, MA, on June 9, 2026, for a full day dedicated to growth, execution, and scaling real-world businesses. Learn from industry leaders, connect with peers facing similar challenges, and leave with actionable strategies. Offer ends March 13.

A Revamped Earnings Call Experience

Salesforce also transformed its earnings call format, blending elements of a podcast, infomercial, and traditional Q&A. Instead of simply reviewing financial results, Benioff hosted on-camera interviews with three customers: the CEOs of SharkNinja, Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, and SaaStr. All three praised Salesforce’s new AI agent features.

Introducing Agentic Work Units (AWU)

To better measure the impact of its AI-powered products, Salesforce rolled out a new metric: Agentic Work Units (AWU). Unlike the standard “token” metric used to gauge AI processing, AWU tracks whether an AI agent actually completes a meaningful task—such as updating a record—rather than just generating text. Last quarter, Salesforce processed 19 trillion tokens, a figure that may sound impressive but is relatively commonplace in the AI sector.

“You can ask it a question and it can write you a poem, but that’s not really all that valuable in the enterprise world,” explained President and CMO Patrick Stokes. AWU is designed to capture when an agent performs a verifiable action, like writing to a record.

Competing Visions for the Future of SaaS and AI

Salesforce also presented its own vision for the evolving AI landscape, depicting SaaS platforms like itself as controlling the majority of the technology stack, with AI model providers serving as interchangeable engines beneath the surface.

This stance directly counters the approach taken by OpenAI, which recently launched its enterprise agent platform, Frontier. OpenAI’s model places itself at the top of the stack, relegating SaaS providers to the foundational layer as underlying infrastructure.

Making a Statement

To cap off the event, Benioff appeared in a black leather jacket—a nod to Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who is widely recognized as a leader in the AI industry.