Salesforce (CRM) Stock Surges on $60B Revenue Target: What the Forecast Means and If the Numbers Add Up

Salesforce’s stock saw a 3.56% after-hours jump on Wednesday. The catalyst was the company's Investor Day presentation, where executives laid out a series of ambitious, long-range financial targets. The market, ever hungry for a growth narrative, seemed to bite. Social media lit up with commentary on the headline figures: a revenue goal of over $60 billion by fiscal year 2030 and a new "50 by FY30" framework.

On the surface, it’s a confident projection from a company that has been a wealth-compounding machine for the last decade, growing from $5.37 billion in annual sales in 2015 to nearly $38 billion today. But the immediate price action obscures a far more interesting story. The stock, as of Wednesday’s close, is still down nearly 30% year-to-date in 2025, having shed over a third of its value since its peak.

This presents a clear discrepancy. A company broadcasting a decade of dominance is simultaneously experiencing a year of significant underperformance. The numbers presented at Dreamforce aren’t just a forecast; they are an argument. An argument that the market, until now, has not been buying. And my analysis suggests the real story isn't about hitting an arbitrary revenue target, but about a high-stakes strategic pivot masked by the hype of AI.

The Financial Engineering of a Narrative

Let’s first deconstruct the numbers. Salesforce is targeting over $60 billion in revenue by fiscal 2030. The announced target implies an organic compounded annual growth rate of over 10% from fiscal 2026 to 2030—to be more exact, a sustained double-digit clip for a company already nearing a $40 billion run rate. That’s a heavy lift. To buttress this, management unveiled its “50 by FY30” Profitable Growth Framework, which aims for the sum of its growth rate and its non-GAAP operating margin to reach 50.

And this is the part of the presentation that I find genuinely telling. The "Rule of X" framework is a common piece of financial theater designed to give investors a simple, digestible heuristic for a company’s health. It signals a commitment to balanced, profitable growth. But it also raises a critical question: if the core business is so robust, why is the stock down 29.24% this year? Where, precisely, is this new wave of growth expected to originate?

The official answer is, of course, AI. The company’s Data and AI business reportedly hit $1.2 billion in revenue in the second quarter, a 120% year-over-year increase. Its platform for autonomous agents, Agentforce, is now at an approximate $440 million annual recurring revenue, with CEO Marc Benioff calling it the "fastest-growing organic product ever." These are impressive figures, but they are still a fraction of the company's total revenue. They don't, by themselves, bridge the gap between the current trajectory and the 2030 promise.

So, what is the missing variable in this equation? It turns out the strategy isn't just about deepening the existing CRM moat with AI. It’s about using AI as an excuse to invade new territory.

A Calculated Declaration of War

The real bombshell from Dreamforce wasn't the financial forecast; it was the explicit confirmation that Salesforce is moving directly into IT Service Management (ITSM). In a sit-down with Jim Cramer, Benioff laid out the plan: leverage Agentforce to offer ITSM capabilities, a market long dominated by ServiceNow (a nearly $200 billion enterprise software titan). It's a move so direct that one outlet declared the Salesforce CEO’s next move could rattle $150 billion tech giant.

This is not a minor product extension. This is a calculated foray into a market that Grand View Research projects will grow from $13.5 billion in 2024 to nearly $30 billion by 2030. Benioff’s entire pitch hinges on a single, powerful concept: distribution. He was quick to point out ServiceNow’s 8,000 or 9,000 customers against Salesforce’s 150,000 core clients and million-strong Slack user base. The strategy is to embed these new ITSM tools directly into the platforms where work is already happening, leveraging what he calls "data gravity."

Think of it this way: Salesforce is using its massive CRM mothership—a slow-moving but immensely powerful aircraft carrier—to launch swarms of AI-powered fighter jets directly into enemy airspace. The AI narrative, centered on Agentforce, provides the perfect cover story for this strategic invasion. It reframes a direct competitive assault as a natural, AI-driven evolution of its platform.

But this raises a host of new questions. Can a company whose DNA is in sales and marketing effectively compete in the deeply technical, process-oriented world of IT management? ServiceNow built its entire empire on this specific domain. Furthermore, how many of Salesforce's 150,000 customers are genuinely in the market for a new ITSM solution, and how many are already locked into long-term contracts with the incumbent? Benioff’s claim of "tens of thousands" of Agentforce deployments is encouraging, but the figure lacks the granular detail needed to assess its true traction in this new vertical. The execution risk here is non-trivial.

A Forecast That's Actually a Battle Plan

The market’s modest pop was a reaction to a headline. But the institutional investors, the ones who move markets over months and years, will be modeling a very different scenario. They won’t just be forecasting Salesforce's organic growth; they will be pricing in a direct, costly, and prolonged war with ServiceNow. The $60 billion target and the "Rule of 50" aren't just financial goals. They are the capital allocation justification for a massive R&D and go-to-market offensive. The real question for investors isn't whether Salesforce can hit a revenue number six years from now. It's whether this bold, aggressive pivot can succeed against a formidable, entrenched competitor. The stock’s year-long slump suggests the jury is still very much out.