Salesforce Stock Slides After KeyBanc Downgrade Over AI Adoption Concerns

Salesforce shares fell 4.0% in pre-market trading after analysts at KeyBanc downgraded the stock, citing signs of sluggish customer adoption for the company's key artificial intelligence product and broader sector-wide pressures.

KeyBanc Downgrade Cites Slow AI Adoption

KeyBanc analyst Jackson Ader lowered his rating on Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) to Sector Weight from a previous Overweight, removing the firm's price target. The downgrade was prompted by field checks and a recent CIO survey that, according to the analyst note, indicated that the adoption of Salesforce's Agentforce platform is not gaining meaningful speed.

The research highlighted two primary obstacles consistently flagged by enterprise customers:

• A lack of sufficiently organized internal data to support serious AI workloads.
• A perception that the Agentforce product is not yet ready for broad, at-scale deployment.

Broader Industry and Market Headwinds

Ad

The analyst note appeared to amplify an already fragile sentiment picture for the enterprise software sector. The downgrade comes amid persistent investor fears that the rise of generative AI tools from companies like OpenAI and Anthropic could compress demand for traditional subscription-based software, affecting peers such as ServiceNow and Adobe.

Separately, news that Starbucks is developing in-house AI tools that could replace some vendor software has added to concerns about large customers potentially reducing their reliance on third-party platforms. A weak broader market, with both the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average trading lower, offered no support to cushion the stock-specific selling pressure.

Contract Win Fails to Lift Shares

The negative sentiment overshadowed a positive announcement from the company. Salesforce disclosed that the U.S. Air Force selected its Missionforce National Security platform to manage a fleet of roughly 84,000 vehicles valued at $13.5 billion.

However, the significant contract win was not enough to counteract the analyst-driven concerns. The selling pressure pushed shares toward $160 in pre-market activity, well below the stock's 52-week high of $274.