Analyst(s): Keith Kirkpatrick, Daniel Newman
Publication Date: September 4, 2025
Salesforce’s latest results show broad-based revenue growth, margin expansion, and continued adoption of its AI and data offerings. The company also strengthened shareholder returns with an expanded buyback program.
What is Covered in this Article:
- Salesforce’s Q2 FY 2026 financial results
- Expanding adoption of Data Cloud and Agentforce
- Broad AI integration and product launches across the portfolio
- Customer momentum across industries and geographies
- Capital allocation priorities and expanded buyback program
- Updated FY26 guidance and path to scaling the agentic enterprise
The News: Salesforce Inc. (NYSE: CRM) reported Q2 FY 2026 revenue of $10.2 billion (above consensus of $10.1 billion), up 9.8% year-over-year (YoY) and 9% in constant currency. Subscription and support revenue rose 11% YoY to $9.7 billion, while professional services and other revenue declined 2.7% YoY to $546 million.
Current remaining performance obligation (cRPO) grew 11% YoY to $29.4 billion, slightly above consensus expectations of $29.2 billion. Non-GAAP operating income was $3.5 billion, up 12% YoY, with a non-GAAP operating margin of 34.3%, a 60-basis-point expansion from last year. Diluted non-GAAP earnings per share (EPS) came in at $2.91, above consensus of $2.78, compared to $2.56 in the prior year.
“We delivered an outstanding quarter to close out the first half of the year, with strong performance across revenue, margin, cash flow, and cRPO—and we remain on track for fiscal 2026 to be a record year with nearly $15 billion in operating cash flow,” said Marc Benioff, Chair and CEO of Salesforce. “These results reflect the success of our customers—like Pfizer, Marriott, and the U.S. Army—who are transforming into agentic enterprises, where humans and AI agents work side by side to reimagine workflows, accelerate productivity, and deliver customer success.
Salesforce Q2 FY 2026 Earnings Show EPS Beat, CRPO Growth, Margin Expansion
Analyst Take: Salesforce delivered another quarter of broad-based strength, beating EPS expectations, expanding margins, and raising full-year guidance despite investor concerns over muted top-line acceleration. The company demonstrated clear momentum in subscription revenue, Data Cloud and Agentforce adoption, and disciplined capital return.
While the near-term outlook remains cautious given weak enterprise IT spending, Salesforce’s product strategy and scaling AI platform highlight why management remains confident in positioning FY 2026 as a record year.
Expanding Adoption of Data Cloud and Agentforce
Data Cloud and AI annual recurring revenue surpassed $1.2 billion, more than doubling YoY. Since launch, Agentforce has closed over 12,500 deals, including more than 6,000 paid, and accounted for over 40% of Q2 FY 2026 bookings through existing customer expansion.
CEO Marc Benioff emphasized that customers moving from pilot to production increased 60% quarter-over-quarter (QoQ), highlighting growing confidence in scaled deployment. Enterprise use cases such as DIRECTV, reducing inquiry times by 300 hours, and Under Armour, boosting satisfaction scores, underscore the platform’s impact.
More than 1.4 million requests were already handled by Agentforce on Salesforce’s own help portal. Importantly, cRPO rose 11% YoY to $29.4 billion, reflecting durable demand and the growing share of AI-driven contracts. Together, these adoption trends reinforce the strategic role of AI agents and data unification in driving recurring revenue growth.
Broad Product Integration and New Launches
Salesforce continued embedding agentic capabilities across its portfolio, adding AI-driven enhancements to Sales Cloud, Service, Field Service, Marketing, Commerce, Tableau, and Slack. In Sales Cloud, agentic salespeople now qualify leads at scale, while Service Cloud agents handle millions of conversations.
Meanwhile, marketing is being reimagined with two-way agent-driven emails, while Commerce agents are enabling personalized shopping. Tableau Next and Slack-based agentic IT Service Management (ITSM) are set to debut at Dreamforce, expanding Salesforce into new product categories. Internally, Salesforce has already deployed dozens of agents in Slack to support IT and HR workflows, reinforcing its customer-zero strategy. Together, these launches demonstrate Salesforce’s push to embed agentic capabilities across every cloud and workflow.
Momentum Across Customer Segments and Geographies
Salesforce highlighted strong execution across customer segments, with SMB and mid-market performance accelerating. Management noted that AI makes smaller companies operate more like larger enterprises. Enterprises like FedEx are already leveraging Data Cloud to unify platforms and achieve double-digit increases in contract conversion rates. At the same time, Williams-Sonoma scaled Agentforce across eight brands within weeks of launch. From a geographic perspective, the U.S. and parts of EMEA, notably the Netherlands and Switzerland, showed strength, while Japan and the U.K. remained softer. Industry performance was strongest in technology, communications, and media, with retail, consumer goods, and public sector more measured. Salesforce’s diversified base continues to provide resilience even as macro IT budgets remain constrained.
Capital Allocation and Shareholder Returns
Salesforce executed $2.6 billion in capital return in the quarter, including $2.2 billion in buybacks and $399 million in dividends. Notably, the board authorized an additional $20 billion share repurchase program, expanding the total authorization to $50 billion. Management reinforced a disciplined “trinity” of priorities for cash flow: buybacks, dividends, and selective M&A. Recent acquisitions of Convergence AI, Blue Birds, and Regrello are intended to strengthen Salesforce’s agentic roadmap, while Informatica remains on track to close in Q4 FY 2026 or early FY 2027. This dual focus on inorganic innovation and shareholder return signals management’s intent to balance growth with long-term value creation.
Guidance and Final Thoughts
Salesforce raised the low end of FY 2026 revenue guidance to $41.1–$41.3 billion (prior: $41-$41.3 billion; consensus: $41.2 billion), reflecting 8.5%–9% growth, and lifted non-GAAP operating margin guidance to 34.1% (previously: 34%). Q3 revenue is expected to reach $10.24–$10.29 billion, with cRPO growth projected slightly above 10%.
The tenth consecutive quarter of operating margin expansion and accelerating AI bookings reinforces confidence that Salesforce is well-positioned to sustain profitable growth. The results also demonstrate that core SaaS remains resilient, giving Salesforce the customer density and enterprise adoption needed to pivot meaningfully to Agentic AI.
That said, questions remain about the ability of Salesforce to drive meaningful revenue from its AI initiatives, given that currently, Data Cloud and AI annual recurring revenue of about $1.2 billion would account for less than 3% of the company’s total 2026 annual revenue guidance figure of roughly $41.1 to $41.3 billion.
Despite near-term caution, the company’s trajectory toward scaling the agentic enterprise remains intact, with greater monetization of AI expected by 2027. Salesforce will need to demonstrate how its Agentforce platform can drive meaningful outcomes for organizations – including real improvements to top- and bottom-line numbers – in order to increase revenue from its AI work.
Read the full Salesforce Q2 FY 2026 earnings release on the Salesforce website.
Declaration of generative AI and AI-assisted technologies in the writing process: During the preparation of this work, the author(s) used Futurum’s generative AI tool to summarize the earnings data and the earnings call transcript. After using this tool/service, the author(s) reviewed and edited the content as needed and take full responsibility for the publication’s content.
Disclosure: Futurum is a research and advisory firm that engages or has engaged in research, analysis, and advisory services with many technology companies, including those mentioned in this article. The author does not hold any equity positions with any company mentioned in this article.
Analysis and opinions expressed herein are specific to the analyst individually and data and other information that might have been provided for validation, not those of Futurum as a whole.
Other insights from Futurum:
Will Regrello Help Salesforce Push Further Into Agentic AI Workflows?
Salesforce Signs Agreement to Acquire Data Management Vendor Informatica for $8 Billion
Salesforce Q1 FY 2026 Results Show AI Momentum and Strong RPO Growth
Author Information
Keith Kirkpatrick is Research Director, Enterprise Software & Digital Workflows for The Futurum Group. Keith has over 25 years of experience in research, marketing, and consulting-based fields.
He has authored in-depth reports and market forecast studies covering artificial intelligence, biometrics, data analytics, robotics, high performance computing, and quantum computing, with a specific focus on the use of these technologies within large enterprise organizations and SMBs. He has also established strong working relationships with the international technology vendor community and is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and events.
In his career as a financial and technology journalist he has written for national and trade publications, including BusinessWeek, CNBC.com, Investment Dealers’ Digest, The Red Herring, The Communications of the ACM, and Mobile Computing & Communications, among others.
He is a member of the Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP).
Keith holds dual Bachelor of Arts degrees in Magazine Journalism and Sociology from Syracuse University.
Daniel is the CEO of The Futurum Group. Living his life at the intersection of people and technology, Daniel works with the world’s largest technology brands exploring Digital Transformation and how it is influencing the enterprise.
From the leading edge of AI to global technology policy, Daniel makes the connections between business, people and tech that are required for companies to benefit most from their technology investments. Daniel is a top 5 globally ranked industry analyst and his ideas are regularly cited or shared in television appearances by CNBC, Bloomberg, Wall Street Journal and hundreds of other sites around the world.
A 7x Best-Selling Author including his most recent book “Human/Machine.” Daniel is also a Forbes and MarketWatch (Dow Jones) contributor.
An MBA and Former Graduate Adjunct Faculty, Daniel is an Austin Texas transplant after 40 years in Chicago. His speaking takes him around the world each year as he shares his vision of the role technology will play in our future.
