Salesforce bets on agentic work units to counter SaaS market fears

On Wednesday, Salesforce announced its fourth-quarter earnings, reporting $10.7 billion in revenue, a 13% increase year-over-year. For the full year, the company reported $41.5 billion in revenue, representing a 10% increase. These results were boosted by its $8 billion acquisition of data management company Informatica last May. Net income reached $7.46 billion. For the year ahead, Salesforce projected revenue of $45.8 billion to $46.2 billion, representing a 10% to 11% increase. The company also stated that its remaining performance obligation—revenue under contract that has not yet been delivered or recognized—is over $72 billion.

These figures arrive as software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies face pressure. Investors fear that artificial intelligence agents will make SaaS business models obsolete—a market concern dubbed the “SaaSpocalypse.” During the earnings call, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff addressed these fears directly. Benioff dismissed the threat, noting that the company has survived previous industry shifts, and suggested that SaaS usage will expand as agents make the software better.

To prove the value of its AI tools, Salesforce introduced a new metric called agentic work units (AWU) to measure task completion. While Salesforce processed 19 trillion tokens last quarter, the company argues that token volume does not measure task completion. Patrick Stokes, Salesforce president and CMO, explained that AI generation has limited value in the enterprise world: “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.” Instead, AWU measures when an agent performs verifiable work, such as writing to a record. This metric supports Salesforce’s architectural vision, which positions SaaS software as the owner of the tech stack, with AI model makers as commoditized engines. This vision directly counters OpenAI, which earlier this month released its enterprise agent, Frontier, with an architecture that places model makers at the top and SaaS databases at the bottom.

To bolster shareholder confidence on Wall Street, Salesforce paired its strategic defense with capital return programs and customer testimonials. During the earnings call, Benioff interviewed executives from customers SharkNinja, Wyndham Hotels and Resorts, and SaaStr to highlight their adoption of Salesforce’s AI agents. The company’s financial highlights included:

• Revenue growth: Fourth-quarter revenue reached $10.7 billion, bringing annual revenue to $41.5 billion.
• Share buyback: The launch of a new $50 billion share buyback program.
• Dividend increase: An increase in its dividend by nearly 6% to $0.44 per share.

Why it matters

Salesforce is attempting to reassure investors that its business model remains viable in the face of AI agents, which have caused market fears of a “SaaSpocalypse” for SaaS companies. By introducing task-based metrics and presenting an architectural vision where SaaS software owns the tech stack, the company is fighting to prove its long-term value to Wall Street.