Salesforce’s Agentforce Bet Made It the Dow’s Worst Performer. Is the Market Overreacting? Sheryar Siddiq Tue, July 28, 2026 at 4:38 AM EDT 4 min read CRM ^DJI Enterprise AI agents were meant to be the breakout software offering for 2026, yet instead they've become one of the major sources of buyer distrust. According to Anaconda and Forrester research, over 88% of AI agent pilots never reach production, as confirmed by independent polls from a16z and MIT Sloan's CIO panel, while Gartner predicts that more than 40% of agentic AI initiatives will be discontinued entirely by 2027 due to questionable ROI. Salesforce Inc. (NYSE: CRM ) walked into the gap between agent hype and agent reality when it placed its growth narrative on Agentforce, and by 2026, that bet has made Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) one of the worst-performing components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, down around 31.48% year to date. Enterprise Friction and Credibility Drag The immediate cause appears to be a credibility problem, not a demand issue. Bernstein downgraded Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) to Sector Weight from Outperform on July 9, removing its price target completely and citing poor customer feedback on Agentforce in particular. According to analyst Jackson Ader, the released data doesn't yet indicate growing momentum, and a recent CIO survey found Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) to be "a standout for the wrong reasons." Management Transparency and Second-Half Reacceleration That said, this interpretation is not uniform, and the debate on the market is serious. On July 14, Goldman Sachs reiterated its Buy rating and $242 price target, expecting organic growth to pick up in the third quarter as more details on AI monetization become available at Salesforce's Agentforce event in September. Goldman's more constructive reading is based on management's own acknowledgment of headwinds in Tableau, Commerce, and Marketing, which the firm sees as realistic rather than concerning, arguing that Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM) is being open about a 12-to-24-month drag on its organic growth algorithm rather than covering it up. The Valuation Case the Market is Missing Salesforce Inc. (NYSE:CRM)'s historical valuation decline looks to be the most mispriced aspect of the market story. Shares are currently trading at a compressed forward earnings multiple of only 10.83x, a substantial drop from the stock's five-year historical average of over 127x. The disparity is even more obvious when compared to prominent peers such as ServiceNow, which trades at a forward P/E of around 20.43x and requires consistent revenue growth above 18% through 2028 to maintain its valuation premium. Salesforce's current valuation of less than 11x forecast earnings is in near-total deadlock, despite the company's strong free cash flow generation and substantial enterprise data integration. Story Continues Short Interest and Hedge Fund Dynamics Bearish sentiment remains active, implying that the recent selloff was caused by aggressive positioning rather than passive weariness. Short interest is currently at 6.39% of the public float, indicating that tactical bears are still leaning into the company despite recent multiple compression. The institutional ownership trend reflected a cautious...
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