Salesforce stock jumps 18% on AI growth and Anthropic investment gain

JUST IN: $CRM jumps 18% after Salesforce posts stronger profit, boosted by AI growth and a $2.6B gain on its stake in Anthropic.

Salesforce just jumped eighteen percent in a single day.

The cloud giant posted three and a half billion in profit, up eighty seven percent from a year ago, and a big chunk of that came from one very smart bet. Its stake in Anthropic delivered a two point six billion dollar gain after the AI startup's valuation hit nine hundred sixty five billion in May. Here's the desk chewing over that partnership.

And the core business isn't just coasting either. Agentforce, their AI product line, is annualising over one and a half billion in revenue, up two hundred forty percent. Marc Benioff couldn't resist a victory lap, saying this is not the SaaSpocalypse, and none of the dire predictions about AI eating software have come true for him.

Worth remembering the stock was down twenty two percent this year before today. One earnings report just erased most of that pain in a single afternoon.

This is Sara White, reporting for HIT.