Salesforce since 1999: SaaS CRM, Slack and Agentforce

Salesforce

American software company founded in San Francisco in 1999. It began by selling customer relationship management (CRM) software as a service used through a browser, and grew into a leading enterprise cloud company by adding acquired businesses, among them MuleSoft, Tableau, Slack and Informatica, to its sales, service and marketing products. Its purchase of Slack, completed in July 2021, was its largest acquisition. In October 2024 it made Agentforce, its platform for AI agents, generally available, and during fiscal 2026 it renamed its product lines to carry the Agentforce name. Revenue for the fiscal year ended January 2026 was US$41.5 billion, with 83,334 employees.

Salesforce is an American software company founded in 1999. It sold customer relationship management (CRM) software as a service used through a browser rather than installed on a customer's own servers, under a "No Software" banner. How it was founded and what it looked like at first are covered in Salesforce Founded; this page is about the company it became. Headquarters: San Francisco. Employees: 83,334 as of 31 January 2026.

A product line built by buying

Salesforce started with a single sales product and widened its enterprise-cloud range through its own development and acquisitions. Its 2022 annual report lists integrating acquired businesses such as Slack, Tableau and MuleSoft among its tasks, and calls the July 2021 purchase of Slack its largest acquisition to date. The story of that deal is in the Slack entry. In November 2025 it bought the data-management company Informatica for about US$9.6 billion.

Subscription and support revenue for the fiscal year ended January 2026 broke down as follows (10-K). In the third quarter of that year the company renamed every product line to carry the Agentforce name, without changing how revenue is allocated.

Product line	Main contents	FY ended Jan 2026	Change
Agentforce Service	Customer service	US$9.82 bn	+8%
Agentforce Sales	Sales automation, the line descended from the original product	US$9.03 bn	+8%
Agentforce 360 Platform, Slack and Other	Development platform, Slack, Informatica (US$0.39 bn)	US$8.88 bn	+23%
Agentforce Integration and Agentforce Analytics	MuleSoft, Tableau and more	US$6.23 bn	+8%
Agentforce Marketing and Agentforce Commerce	Marketing and e-commerce	US$5.43 bn	+3%

Agentforce and the company's own numbers

On 29 October 2024 Salesforce made Agentforce, its platform for building and running AI agents, generally available. The company described it as going beyond chatbots and copilots: agents that can act without a person, triggered by changes in data, business rules and other signals. The same release called Salesforce "the world's #1 AI CRM".

Progress since then has been reported in metrics the company defines. In its results for the second quarter of fiscal 2027 (to 31 July 2026), Salesforce said Agentforce and Data 360 annual recurring revenue (ARR) had reached nearly US$3.9 billion and Agentforce ARR alone had passed US$1.5 billion. From that quarter, however, Agentforce ARR was redefined to include Slackbot and other offerings, so it is not measured on the same basis as earlier periods. The same release guided to revenue of US$46.1 billion to US$46.4 billion for the year ending January 2027.

Key events

1999: founded in San Francisco (see the founding entry).
July 2021: Slack acquisition completed, the company's largest.
4 January 2023: announces a cut of about 10% of its workforce (the 2023 tech layoffs).
29 October 2024: Agentforce generally available.
August-October 2025 (Q3 of fiscal 2026): product lines renamed to carry the Agentforce name.
November 2025: Informatica acquisition completed (about US$9.6 bn).

Financials

Fiscal year ended 31 January 2026, per the 10-K.

Revenue: US$41.5 bn (+10%)
Income from operations: US$8.3 bn (operating margin about 20%)
Net income: US$7.46 bn (prior year US$6.20 bn)
Remaining performance obligation: about US$72.4 bn (+14%), of which about US$35.1 bn falls in the next 12 months
Employees: 83,334

Questions this page answers

How does Salesforce make its money?

Mostly from subscription cloud services. In the fiscal year ended January 2026, subscription and support revenue was US$39.4 billion: Agentforce Service US$9.8 billion, Agentforce Sales US$9.0 billion, Agentforce 360 Platform, Slack and Other US$8.9 billion, Integration and Analytics US$6.2 billion, and Marketing and Commerce US$5.4 billion.

What is Agentforce?

A platform for building and running AI agents, which Salesforce made generally available on 29 October 2024. The company says the agents can act without waiting for a person, triggered by changes in data and other signals. At the end of the quarter ended July 2026 it reported Agentforce annual recurring revenue above US$1.5 billion, a metric the company defines and broadened that same quarter.

When did Salesforce buy Slack?

It completed the acquisition in July 2021. Salesforce's annual report calls it the company's largest acquisition to date. The story from announcement to completion is in the Slack entry.

Sources