Salesforce CEO vies to overcome investors' AI skepticism while touting company's quarterly numbers

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — After riding the artificial intelligence craze to new heights, business software maker Salesforce has been pummeled by a wave of investor skepticism that’s intensified the pressure on its persuasive CEO Marc Benioff to reverse the tide.

Benioff, who helped spearhead the transition to cloud computing after founding Salesforce in 1999, got a chance to try to change the AI narrative late Wednesday with the release of his company’s latest quarterly results.

The key numbers covering August through October eclipsed the analyst projections that help steer the stock market, providing Benioff with some material to support his contention that Salesforce’s big bets on AI will yield a jackpot. The San Francisco-based company earned $2.1 billion, or $2.19 per share, a 37% increase from the same time last year while revenue rose 9% to nearly $10.9 billion. Salesforce also provided an outlook for the current quarter ending in January that exceeded analysts' predictions.

“We’re uniquely positioned for this new era,” Benioff boasted during a 25-minute address on an analyst conference call that sometimes sounded like an AI sermon that also featured comments about “wow” moments that customers experience when seeing the company's technology.

Salesforce’s shares initially surged by more than 5% after the results came out, but backtracked to a gain of 2% following Benioff's presentation.

It's unclear if that modest momentum will be sustained in Thursday's regular trading session because making more money than analysts anticipated isn’t necessarily enough to keep propelling a technology stock amid persisting doubts about whether the hundreds of billions of dollars being poured into the much-hyped technology will pay off.

Nvidia, the dominant maker of the chips needed to power AI, put a dent in the wall of worry a couple weeks ago with a quarterly earnings report that soared far beyond analyst estimates and initially eased fears about a Big Tech bubble bursting.

But the tranquility quickly evaporated, leaving Nvidia’s stock price slightly below where it was trading before the company’s stellar earnings report and 15% below its peak price reached in late October when the chipmaker became the first company to be valued at $5 trillion.

The AI jitters have punished Salesforce even more severely. Before the earnings report was released, Salesforce's market value had plunged by 35%, wiping out about $125 billion in shareholder wealth, since Salesforce’s stock price peaked at $369 a year ago.

The downturn has happened even as Benioff has been doing his best to highlight AI's potential benefits while calling upon the flair for salesmanship that he developed while become the become a chief evangelist behind the rise of software subscription services amid the ruins of the dot-com bust a quarter century ago.

Benioff, who owns Time magazine in addition to his Salesforce job, also is among the Big Tech leaders who have forged ties with President Donald Trump this year while trying to persuade the administration to adopt AI-friendly policies to protect U.S. interests as China also works feverishly on the technology.

Salesforce has been primarily focused on creating Ai agents that can automate more customer sales agents while spawning a digital labor force that will take over jobs that have traditionally been filled by people.

In a sign that Benioff intends to practice what he preaches, Salesforce laid off 4,000 of its own customer support workers as its “Agentforce” technology took over more of the responsibilities.

But the corporate customers that buy Salesforce’s services haven't been embracing AI agents as quickly as investors initially thought, turning the company into a “poster child” for the doubts hanging over the technology, said Jay Woods, chief market strategist for investment banking firm Freedom Capital Markets.

The second-guessing hasn’t dimmed Benioff’s AI exuberance – a passion that recently displayed in a resounding endorsement of Google’s latest version of the Gemini technology powering its AI suite.

“We all know that the speed of innovation has exceeded the speed of customer adoption,” Benioff conceded while confidently predicting that dynamic is about to change dramatically as more companies and government agencies build AI services into their operations.

Salesforce is projecting $60 billion in revenue for its fiscal year ending in January 2030 – a target that would require average annual increases of 10% from its forecasted sales of $41.5 billion for its current fiscal year. The company also just completed an $8 billion acquisition of another software maker, Informatica, that is building AI tools to manage corporate data.

“We’re continuing to execute on the path to our $60 billion dream” Benioff said.

FILE - Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff delivers the keynote address at the start of the Dreamforce conference at the Moscone Center, in San Francisco, Oct. 14, 2025. (Jessica Christian/San Francisco Chronicle via AP, File)

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — Former South African President Jacob Zuma and his co-accused, the French arms manufacturer Thales, returned to court on Thursday to appeal for the dismissal of the long-running corruption case against them.

Zuma, one of the key figures of the South African liberation struggle who served as president from 2008 to 2018, is accused of corruption in connection with an arms transaction in 1999.

Here's what to know about the case:

Zuma faces 18 charges, including corruption, fraud, and money laundering, linked to 783 alleged illegal payments he received from French armaments manufacturer Thales (formerly Thomson-CSF) and business owner Schabir Shaik.

Zuma has refuted every indictment, saying the accusations are part of a “witch hunt” with political motivations. He is currently fighting to have the charges dropped after entering a not guilty plea.

The case has been ongoing for nearly two decades, facing multiple delays including legal challenges by Zuma’s team, which has repeatedly appealed and challenged the charges.

In a potentially groundbreaking development, the National Prosecuting Authority is arguing before Judge Nkosinathi Emmanuel Chili this week that Zuma and Thales should be blocked from using its appeals to further delay their trial.

“Our problem is that this strategy has delayed the case for 18 years,” advocate Trengrove told the court on Thursday. “Mr. Zuma has over the years run 8 different interlocutory applications and Thales has been part of four. They have between them delayed the hearing for more than 18 years, all those applications have been dismissed.”

The ex-president's lawyers have also questioned the lead prosecutor Advocate Billy Downer’s impartiality, leading to additional delays. The former president’s ill health has further stalled the case.

Zuma’s defense attorneys have also contended that without the testimony of two crucial Thales executives in the case —former directors Pierre Moynot and Alain Thetard, who died in 2020 and 2022 —they won’t be able to mount a meaningful defense.

Zuma was found in contempt of court by the South African Constitutional Court on June 29, 2021. He received a 15-month prison sentence for refusing to testify before the Zondo committee, a judicial commission investigating allegations of corruption.

Zuma surrendered himself to the police on July 7, 2021, and was taken to the Estcourt Correctional Center in KwaZulu-Natal. He was then released on medical parole, but the parole was ruled to be unlawful, and he was ordered to go back to prison. However, he was later released from prison after his sentence was commuted.

In October the former president was ordered to pay back $1.6 million (R28.9 million) in legal fees that were unlawfully funded by the state for his personal corruption defense. The Gauteng High Court in Pretoria ruled that Zuma must also pay interest on the amount, calculated at the prescribed rate.

Zuma has since been attempting to appeal the judgment for legal fees, claiming he’s not liable.

AP’s Africa coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/africa

FILE - Former president Jacob Zuma is seen at the Results Operation Center in Midrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, on June 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe, File)