Salesforce Beats on Earnings, But Most of the Profit Jump Came From an Anthropic Stock Gain

Salesforce reported fiscal second-quarter results Wednesday, August 26, 2026, that beat Wall Street estimates on both revenue and earnings, sending shares up roughly 11% to 12% in after-hours trading, according to CNBC, Morningstar and Ground News.

Revenue came in at $11.35 billion for the quarter ended July 31, up 11% from a year earlier and ahead of Wall Street estimates, which ranged from about $11.32 billion to $11.33 billion depending on the source cited by CNBC, Morningstar and Crypto Briefing. Net income hit $3.53 billion, an 87% jump from $1.89 billion a year ago. Adjusted earnings per share landed at $5.90, blowing past the $3.27 consensus estimate cited by Morningstar.

The Anthropic gain did the heavy lifting

Salesforce booked a $2.6 billion unrealized gain on its strategic investment in Anthropic, the AI startup behind Claude, according to CNBC. Anthropic's valuation reportedly hit $965 billion earlier this year after a fresh funding round, per CNBC.

Strip that gain out, and Salesforce's adjusted EPS drops to $3.37, according to Morningstar's Christine Ji, citing the company's own disclosures. That's still above the $3.27 analysts expected, but nowhere near the headline $5.90 figure driving the stock pop.

Alphabet and Microsoft have also flagged similar paper gains from their own Anthropic stakes in recent weeks, according to CNBC. When a handful of tech giants all pile into the same AI startup, its rising valuation can flatter multiple companies' earnings reports at once, without any of them selling a share.

Agentforce is the real growth story

Salesforce's AI product push looks genuinely strong. Annualized revenue from Agentforce, the company's AI agent platform, topped $1.5 billion, up 240% year over year, according to CNBC and Ground News. That's an acceleration from the prior quarter's growth rate of over 200%, per CNBC.

Combined with the Data 360 product line, total annual recurring revenue from AI and data products approached $3.9 billion, up more than 210% from a year earlier, according to Morningstar. CEO Marc Benioff said in a press release cited by Morningstar that ARR is "about to cross $4 billion."

Crypto Briefing reported that Salesforce delivered 3.2 billion "Agentic Work Units" during the quarter, a 97% jump from the prior quarter alone, suggesting actual usage of these AI tools is climbing fast, not just contract signings.

Guidance, VA contract, and the Fin acquisition

Salesforce raised its full-year revenue guidance to a range of $46.1 billion to $46.4 billion, up from the $45.9 billion to $46.2 billion range it gave in May, according to CNBC. That implies roughly 11% growth at the midpoint, and it beat the roughly $46.1 billion analysts had penciled in, per CNBC and Morningstar.

For the current quarter, Salesforce guided to $11.42 billion to $11.50 billion in revenue and $3.42 to $3.44 in adjusted EPS, both ahead of the roughly $11.41 billion to $11.42 billion and $3.38 analysts expected, per CNBC and Morningstar.

During the quarter Salesforce also announced a $1.6 billion contract with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and revealed plans to acquire customer service startup Fin for $3.6 billion, according to CNBC and Ground News. The company's current remaining performance obligation, a measure of contracted revenue expected to convert over the next year, came in at $33.5 billion, ahead of analyst expectations that ranged from roughly $33.22 billion to $33.4 billion depending on the source cited by CNBC and Morningstar.

Claudeforce and the bigger AI bet

Salesforce also announced Claudeforce, a partnership integrating Anthropic's Claude directly into its platform, letting the AI compose emails and update customer records through chat, according to CNBC and Morningstar.

Benioff pushed back hard on the idea that AI models threaten to gut traditional software companies. "This is not the SaaSpocalypse," Benioff said on the earnings call, per CNBC. "We've been hearing about this for last two quarters, these dire predictions about the end of software and how the models eat everything, but none of them have come true for us."

The Agentforce numbers back this argument on the surface. Skeptics have a fair point, though. Salesforce's own adjusted EPS, once you pull out the Anthropic gain, only modestly beat estimates, not the blowout the headline number suggests. A single quarter of AI product growth, however fast, doesn't yet prove the core software business is reaccelerating on its own, and much of Wall Street's excitement Wednesday tracked a paper gain tied to another company's valuation, not Salesforce's own operations.

Still down big for the year

Salesforce shares remain down roughly 22% to 23% year to date as of Wednesday's close, according to CNBC and Morningstar, even as the S&P 500 gained about 12% over the same stretch. Morningstar noted the stock has climbed 33% from its late-July low, and Ad-hoc-news reported shares traded as high as $207.95 on August 19 while sitting more than $60 below their 12-month peak of $269.11.

Salesforce Chief Financial and Operating Officer Robin Washington said net new annual order value posted its strongest growth in four years, which she framed as evidence the company remains on track for a second-half revenue reacceleration, according to Morningstar. Whether that holds will show up in the numbers when Salesforce reports its fiscal third quarter, and in whether Agentforce's growth keeps outpacing the rest of the company's aging software lines.