TL;DR — Key Takeaways
- Salesforce partners report that Agentforce has yet to become a meaningful source of new bookings, despite strong customer interest in agentic AI.
- TD Cowen found that 56% of partners expect demand to emerge over time, while only one-third reported active trials or evaluations.
- Just 33% of surveyed partners met or exceeded quarterly targets, down from 43% in the previous quarter.
Two years after Salesforce launched its flagship artificial intelligence (AI) platform Agentforce with promises of transformative growth, implementation partners report that the technology has yet to generate meaningful revenue.
A recent report by investment firm TD Cowen reveals a stark disconnect between vendor optimism and partner realities across the United States, Europe, and Asia. Despite growing customer curiosity surrounding AI agents designed for automated enterprise tasks, third-party implementation firms report that early interest has failed to translate into actual sales pipeline momentum.
According to TD Cowen’s survey, 56% of Salesforce partners expect customer demand to materialize eventually but note that corporate initiatives require more time to mature. While one-third reported active trial and evaluation activity, not a single respondent cited Agentforce as a primary driver of new bookings.
“Agentforce adoption is still subdued,” the report noted, highlighting a broader commercial slowdown across Salesforce’s ecosystem. Only 33% of surveyed partners met or exceeded their quarterly targets, down from 43% in the previous quarter.
Salesforce was not immediately available for comment.
Partner feedback stands in stark contrast to top-line metrics promoted by Salesforce leadership. During the company’s first quarter fiscal year 2027 earnings call, company CEO Marc Benioff told analysts that Agentforce had already surpassed $1 billion in annual recurring revenue (ARR) and was propelling future contract value.
Salesforce has positioned the agentic AI suite as its primary defense against the SaaSapocalypse, a market shift where autonomous software agents replace traditional seat-based software upgrades.
However, financial analysts remain skeptical of the underlying momentum. A parallel survey released by KeyBanc Capital Markets echoed TD Cowen’s findings, signaling dissatisfaction among enterprise chief information officers (CIOs).
KeyBanc analysts noted that feedback from customer channels has been consistently soft, citing two structural barriers: Enterprise data that remains too fragmented for practical AI execution, and a widespread perception that the product capabilities are not yet fully mature.
“What we can piece together in the disclosed numbers does not signal building momentum,” KeyBanc reported, adding that Salesforce stood out negatively in its latest enterprise spending checks.
As enterprise customers navigate data readiness challenges and delay full-scale deployments, Salesforce faces rising pressure to prove that its multibillion-dollar AI pivot can deliver tangible returns for the channel partners tasked with selling and building it.
Tech analyst Jack Gold did not find the report surprising because “many enterprises really don’t know how to maximize the use of AI to generate additional ROI on their existing solutions.”
“Adding AI to existing software capabilities is usually not enough,” Gold said. “Making best use of the technology requires redesigning the workflows to make maximum use of the technology. Without that, it’s not really that big a boost. And I suspect that much of the workflow with Salesforce and others is still the same regardless of the tools having additional capabilities.”