Salesforce Avoids Q3 Danger Zone With ‘Explosive’ Agentforce Momentum

Salesforce stock is up in extended trading after the company’s third quarter results were revealed – delivering a revenue forecast which topped estimates and some positive metrics on Agentforce and Data 360. 

The CRM giant unveiled Q3 FY26 revenue of $10.3B, representing a 9% year-over-year (Y/Y) increase or 8% in constant currency (CC), along with third quarter operating cash flow of $2.3B billion, which is up 17% Y/Y, and free cash flow of $2.2B, up 22% Y/Y.

Revenue guidance for the fourth quarter topped Wall Street estimates. For Q4, Salesforce called for $3.02 to $3.04 in adjusted earnings per share on $11.13B to $11.23B in revenue, while analysts polled by LSEG had expected $3.04 per share and $10.9B in revenue, CNBC reports. 

Full year FY26 revenue guidance was raised to $41.45B to $41.55B, an increase of around 10% Y/Y and 9% in CC. After the results were announced, CRM stock spiked a few percentage points in extended trading, and at the time of writing (8.36AM GMT) remains just shy of 2% above its price at the close of market. 

Crucially, Agentforce and Data 360 (formerly Data Cloud) were “momentum drivers”, hitting almost $1.4B in ARR, with Salesforce now boasting of more than 9,500 paid Agentforce deals and 3.2 trillion tokens processed.  

Let’s take a look at what exactly these results mean for Salesforce and the ecosystem. 

Salesforce Q3 Results in Full

The Q3 results were broadly positive for Salesforce, with the following metrics being revealed: 

• Current remaining performance obligation of $29.4B, up 11% “Y/Y” and in CC.
• Remaining performance obligation of $59.5B, up 12% Y/Y.
• Third quarter subscription and support revenue of $9.7B, up 10% Y/Y and 9% in CC.
• Third quarter revenue of $10.3B, up 9% Y/Y and 8% in CC.
• Third quarter GAAP operating margin of 21.3% and non-GAAP operating margin of 35.5%.
• Third quarter operating cash flow of $2.3B, up 17% Y/Y, and free cash flow of $2.2B, up 22% Y/Y.
• Returned $4.2B to shareholders, including $3.8B in share repurchases and $395M in dividends.
• Raises full year FY26 revenue guidance to $41.45B to $41.55B, up 9% to 10% Y/Y and approximately 9% in CC, including approximately 80bps Informatica contribution.
• Updates full year FY26 GAAP operating margin guidance to 20.3%, and maintains non-GAAP operating margin guidance of 34.1%.
• Raises full year FY26 operating cash flow growth guidance to approximately 13% to 14% Y/Y.

Chair and CEO of Salesforce, Marc Benioff, said: “We are raising fiscal year 2026 revenue guidance to $41.45 billion to $41.55 billion, and Q3 cRPO was exceptional, up 11% year-over-year at $29.4 billion, signalling a powerful pipeline of future revenue.

“Our Agentforce and Data 360 products are the momentum drivers, hitting nearly $1.4 billion in ARR – an explosive 114% year-over-year gain. We now have over 9,500 paid Agentforce deals and 3.2 trillion tokens processed, underscoring our leadership in building the Agentic Enterprise and driving real outcomes.”

President and Chief Financial and Operating Officer at Salesforce, Robin Washington, said: “Our Q3 momentum and continued Agentforce adoption further reinforces our path to achieve our $60 billion plus organic revenue target and our Profitable Growth Framework target (a combined growth-plus-margin benchmark) of 50 by FY30.”

What This Means for Salesforce

Ahead of the results being revealed, we had written about why exactly they would be so pivotal for Salesforce – and what to look for beyond typical metrics like revenue. While money coming in is obviously of paramount importance to any business, we pointed out that investors really want to see results from AI – Agentforce, in Salesforce’s case. 

The task of spreading AI adoption could be said to be more of a marathon than a sprint. While this idea could be considered an excuse by impatient investors looking for explosive growth from artificial intelligence products, it is also arguably a reasonable approach to take. 

Investors could point to AI tools like ChatGPT, which has seen extraordinary growth, and compare that to the likes of Agentforce, which has been a bit slower and steadier. But it’s important to bear in mind that OpenAI’s tools are fairly simple to access, while enterprise-wide solutions like Agentforce require a bit more time. 

Quarterly results are still about those key metrics like revenue for Salesforce, but just as important – or, arguably, even more important – are the figures on AI adoption, which represent the future of the CRM giant. 

In the latest results, Agentforce and Data 360 annual recurring revenue (ARR) reached nearly $1.4B, up 114% Y/Y, with Agentforce ARR surpassing half a billion in Q3, up 330% Y/Y.

Salesforce has now closed more than 18,500 Agentforce deals since launch – with over 9,500 paid deals, up a substantial 50% quarter-over-quarter.

At Dreamforce 2025, Marc Benioff was asked about the low adoption of Agentforce, with (at that time) 12,000 adoptions from 150,000 customers equating to a rate of around 8%. Benioff had said that Agentforce was the “fastest-growing product in our history”. These figures certainly seem to go some way towards vindicating him. 

The latest results also included the following metrics:

• Agentforce accounts in production increased 70% quarter-over-quarter.
• 50% of Agentforce and Data 360 Q3 bookings came from existing customer expansion.
• Agentforce has now processed more than 3.2 trillion tokens through Salesforce’s LLM gateway.
• Data 360 ingested 32 trillion records in Q3, up 119% Y/Y, including 15 trillion via Zero Copy, up 341% Y/Y, and 390% Y/Y growth in unstructured data processed.
• Nearly 90% of Forbes’ Top 50 AI companies run on Salesforce, with an average of 4 clouds.
• Completed Informatica acquisition, introducing their rich data catalogue to the Salesforce platform.

Salesforce Ben Founder Ben McCarthy said: “The main thing Wall Street were happy about was momentum with Agentforce. Growth rates are pretty consistent for free and paid customers, with an increase of 50% in one quarter. 

“This is pretty huge, especially as the numbers get bigger. It’s 18,500 deals, with more than 9,500 paid. At this rate, next quarter could become nearly 30,000 deals. Agentforce has also crossed $500M in revenue now.”

Data 360 also looks promising. In Q3, it ingested 32 trillion records, up 119% Y/Y, including 15 trillion via Zero Copy, up 341% Y/Y, and 390% Y/Y growth in unstructured data processed. 

Ben added: “It really proves Salesforce’s case for a consumption-based model. Imagine if Agentforce starts getting the same traction – revenue will be insane in the future.”

As you can see above, areas like Slack are showing slight momentum, likely fueled by some recent AI-driven initiatives to improve the platform. Agentforce Sales and Service are presenting similarly steady numbers, which is to be expected with the saturation of CRM in the current market.

Meanwhile, growth in Agentforce Marketing and Commerce has slowed to just 1% Y/Y, down from around 10% in Q1 FY25. You could argue Salesforce has focused its AI push elsewhere in the portfolio, leaving this area on the back burner. 

That said, they’ve only recently started rolling out new Agentforce-powered Marketing and Commerce features, which could help this side of the business re-accelerate if customers adopt them.

Jefferies Global Research & Strategy said in a report following the Q3 results that what they liked was “encouraging Agentforce metrics”. They wrote: “CRM closed 18.5K AF deals (9.5K paid) vs 12.5K (6K paid) in F2Q and 8K (4K paid) in F1Q. 

“Management also provided metrics indicating that customers were moving beyond experimentation and increasing consumption: Agentforce accounts in production increased 70% Q/Q and 50% of AF/Data Cloud bookings came from existing customers looking to increase their consumption (40/30% in F2Q/F1Q).”

Final Thoughts 

It really is the Year of Agentforce, and this quarter is arguably the quarter of Agentforce. A slow start to adoption appears to have led to some scepticism towards the product in the early days, but we’re appearing to see something of a snowball effect with adoption. 

As the product continues to prove itself, we might come to see something of an explosion, with a compounding effect and exponential growth – if current trends continue. 

It’s certainly a big if. There have been warnings of a bubble in the AI sector for quite some time now, and only time will tell if artificial intelligence products like Agentforce really are going to change everything very soon – or if another, less rosy future lies in store for Salesforce, which is wagering so much on that idea.  

If you’re looking for further guidance on Agentforce and AI adoption, make sure to check out some practical tips from industry experts below.