The S&P 500 has roared again because the early April sell-off. In actual fact, the 20% bounce-back means the benchmark index is now in constructive territory for the yr (+1.7%). This appeared unlikely not way back.

One draw back of this, although, is that many US tech shares look very dear once more. Palantir‘s price-to-sales ratio, for instance, is an eye-watering 111!

Nonetheless, down 22% in 2025, I feel Salesforce (NYSE: CRM) inventory provides development at an inexpensive price. So I not too long ago added it to my Shares and Shares ISA.

If it’s alternative in synthetic intelligence (AI) pays off over the subsequent decade, the inventory may generate very strong returns.

Software program big

Salesforce is a cloud-based software program firm greatest recognized for serving to companies handle their relationships with clients. It has 11 distinct clouds (gross sales, advertising and marketing, analytics, and many others).

For instance, a enterprise may use simply Gross sales Cloud to handle leads and pipelines. Massive enterprises could finish up with 5 or extra clouds built-in throughout their groups. PepsiCo makes use of all 11 of them!

Between FY2019 and FY2024, Salesforce grew its income from $13.3bn to $34.9bn, at a compound annual development charge of roughly 21%. Alongside the way in which, the agency has been enhancing profitability, particularly on a free money circulation foundation. 

Nonetheless, top-line development has noticeably slowed over the previous couple of years. In FY2025, which led to January, income grew 8.7% to $37.9bn. This yr (FY2026), gross sales are anticipated to extend by an identical quantity, to about $41.2bn. 

Consequently, the share price has underperformed the S&P 500 over the previous 5 years. It’s up simply 39% whereas the index has practically doubled.  

Enter AI brokers

Arguably then, the agency wants a catalyst to kickstart development. And AI brokers may present simply that over the subsequent decade. 

AI brokers can autonomously deal with duties throughout customer support, gross sales, and advertising and marketing, with little or no human prompts. Assume: ‘Book the meeting’, ’electronic mail the shopper’, ‘close the deal’.

These automated duties are boosting productiveness for purchasers and opening up an enormous digital labour alternative for Salesforce. Its not too long ago launched Agentforce resolution permits customers to construct and deploy autonomous AI brokers.

In fiscal Q1, it already had over 8,000 Agentforce offers in place, with half of these paid for. Some early adopters embody PepsiCo, Finnair, and Volkswagen. 

AI brokers want correct information, in any other case you’ll simply finish up with dumb chatbots pretending to be useful. By its Information Cloud, which helps clients unify their information from various sources, Salesforce has the customer-specific information to make AI brokers work. And an enormous world base of consumers to promote them to. 

In Q1, Information Cloud and AI mixed had already reached annual recurring income of greater than $1bn, making these the fastest-growing merchandise within the agency’s historical past. 

Salesforce additionally quickly plans to carry AI brokers to drive effectivity within the public sector, which is a large long-term alternative.

Pleased addition

One near-term threat here’s a world recession, which may damage buyer adoption of Salesforce’s varied clouds. Competitors in AI brokers from Microsoft and ServiceNow can also be fierce.

Nonetheless, searching throughout the subsequent decade, I feel Agentforce has large development potential. With Salesforce inventory buying and selling at an inexpensive 23 instances ahead earnings, I used to be comfortable to snap it up for my ISA.