Salesforce is "likely to be negatively impacted by the advent of agentic AI," one analyst said. He upgraded the stock anyway.

Guggenheim analyst John DiFucci raised his rating Wednesday on Salesforce shares to Buy from Neutral, setting a $228 price target. Shares of Salesforce advanced 3.8% to $162.62 in the premarket session.

The upgrade reflects Guggenheim's increasingly bullish outlook on the software sector. ServiceNow, another stock that has weathered concerns over artificial-intelligence disruption, also received an upgrade to Buy from Hold on Wednesday.

Those fears have faded with time. In a telling sign on Friday, the iShares Expanded Tech-Software Sector ETF outperformed the VanEck Semiconductor ETF. Even as tech stocks broadly slid, ServiceNow, Workday, and AppLovin were among the S&P 500's biggest gainers.

DiFucci's bullish call on Salesforce comes with the stock trading down more than 22% from than its early-June peak of $209.06. At its current valuation, DiFucci sees "an attractive entry point for investors."

But there's more behind his call. DiFucci believes "the Armageddon scenario currently priced into the stock is misaligned with reality," although he conceded that AI poses "a significant risk" to the traditional software-as-a-service business model.

"To be clear, this is not a call that Salesforce will be a beneficiary of AI, but we don't believe it will decline as implied in the current valuation," DiFucci wrote.

Write to Mackenzie Tatananni at mackenzie.tatananni@barrons.com

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

July 01, 2026 09:20 ET (13:20 GMT)

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