Does the Spindle AI Acquisition Make Salesforce Stock a Buy, Sell, or Hold?

The race to dominate the world of artificial intelligence (AI) is clearly on, with customer relationship management giant Salesforce (CRM) now appearing to be entering the fray in a big way.

The company dedicates its focus to providing enterprises with best-in-class systems to handle lead generation and workflows, having become an essential layer in the planning of workforces around the world. As such, there’s a solid investment thesis underpinning this company that most investors can easily understand.

Salesforce’s overall growth rate has accelerated, thanks in part to its new product Agentforce. This is an agentic layer of the company’s native platform, and it looks to utilize AI technology to create even more tailored solutions for the company’s thousands of clients.

One intriguing piece of news that had shares in the spotlight this week is an announcement that Salesforce will acquire Spindle AI, in a deal whose terms have yet to be disclosed.

Let’s dive into what this deal is all about, and why investors are cheering this move (acquisitions normally result in share price declines for the company acquiring a given target). 

What Does This Deal Mean?

Salesforce’s deal to acquire advanced agentic analytics AI company Spindle AI is certainly one that makes sense for Salesforce. Given the company’s focus on AI-driven agentic solutions, acquiring more talent in this space will allow the company to grow and improve its current offerings faster. Additionally, having the manpower to be able to launch new products outside of Salesforce’s Agentforce and its Agentforce 360 platform could provide very accretive growth, which investors are clearly clamoring for. 

Looking at Salesforce’s current fundamentals above, it’s clear that Salesforce has found a high-margin growth model that’s currently working. With robust profit margins of more than 16% and strong return-on-equity and return-on-asset metrics, Saleforce is a company that should arguably be worth 6 times sales. 

Still, this acquisition and its ability to potentially boost Saleforce’s top- and bottom-line growth over the years to come has some investors reconsidering their models. On a forward basis, the fact that Salesforce is trading at less than 28 times earnings may be a compelling entry point for growth investors looking for relative value in this market.

Now, this multiple is still higher than that of the overall market, so CRM stock is far from cheap. But it really comes down to earnings quality and future expected growth. On those two fronts, this deal certainly bolsters the buy thesis for this name.

What Do Wall Street Analysts Think?

Analysts on Wall Street have pegged CRM stock as one that should be worth $330.65 in a year from now. 

That’s very substantial upside from current levels, with this price target implying CRM stock could surge more than 35% over the next year or so. With that kind of upside, I’d expect to see a stock price performance chart that looks a lot different than the one above. Indeed, CRM stock is down meaningfully over the course of the past year.

But if the company’s growth rate and fundamentals can improve thanks to this deal, perhaps this price target will turn out to be light in hindsight. We’ll have to see. Personally, this is a stock that’s near the top of my watch list now, and I’ll provide updates as they come on how this AI deal ultimately unfolds.