Salesforce Beat Earnings. The Stock Fell Anyway. Here's Why AI Anxiety Still Rules Software.

Salesforce delivered strong Q4 results after the close Wednesday, beating on both revenue and earnings per share. But the stock fell as much as 5% in after-hours trading because its guidance for fiscal year 2027 came in slightly below what Wall Street wanted. Sound familiar? Workday did the exact same thing Tuesday night and fell in after-hours.

The pattern in enterprise software right now

Beat expectations on the quarter you just reported? Great. But if your forward guidance doesn't show clear acceleration, investors sell. The reason: the entire enterprise software sector is trading under the shadow of an existential question: will AI agents eventually replace the complex software platforms that companies like Salesforce and Workday sell?

Salesforce's Agentforce product has generated 29,000 deals, which is an impressive number. But investors want to see whether those deals translate to meaningful revenue acceleration, not just cautious guidance that lands slightly below analyst estimates. Workday, which reported Tuesday night with weak forward guidance, has now lost about 38% year-to-date.

What the market is telling us

The message from this earnings season is clear: if you have a convincing AI monetization story, you get the benefit of the doubt. If you don't, or if your guidance suggests you're not sure yet, you get punished. The bar for enterprise software companies right now isn't just beating the current quarter, it's proving that AI makes your business bigger, not smaller.

Sources: CNBC, Bloomberg, Yahoo Finance, Salesforce