Salesforce (CRM) shares charged higher on Oct. 12 as a senior Bank of America analyst double upgraded them to “Buy” after reassessing the software giant’s prospects in the artificial intelligence (AI) era. Analyst Tal Liani now rates CRM at “Buy,” with a bullish price target of $285, indicating potential upside of more than 20% from current levels.
His bullish call adds to momentum that has already driven Salesforce stock up more than 50% since late June.
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www.barchart.comWhy BofA Upgraded Salesforce Stock
Liani’s double upgrade follows discussions with company executives, which challenged his earlier concern that AI could allow customers to bypass Salesforce’s applications. He’s now convinced that large enterprises are unlikely to abandon platforms holding their business data, workflows, permissions, and compliance requirements.
“If anything, AI should deepen dependence on these platforms,” the BofA analyst wrote.
For his bullish view, Liani cited Salesforce’s four-layer approach — governed data, established apps such as Sales Cloud and Service Cloud, AI-powered Agentforce, and conversational interfaces like Slack and Claudeforce.
BofA’s investment thesis rests primarily on CRM retaining control over the information agents can access and the actions they can perform, even when users interact through another firm’s interface.
Do CRM Shares Justify Their Premium Valuation?
Bank of America’s optimism also reflects encouraging commercial signals, including larger deals and accelerating performance at Slack.
In its research report, the investment firm raised its subscription and support sales growth estimates to 10.4% for fiscal 2028 and 10.5% for the year after.
Strong cash generation provides further reason for the upgrade. BofA’s raised price objective applies a multiple of 16x estimated calendar 2027 free cash flow on an enterprise-value basis — a meaningful increase from 9x previously.
That exceeds the cited peer average of 15x, reflecting BofA’s confidence in Salesforce’s artificial intelligence strategy and anticipated growth reacceleration.
How Wall Street Recommends Playing Salesforce
Other Wall Street analysts agree with Liani’s bullish view on Salesforce shares for the remainder of 2026.
According to Barchart, the consensus rating on CRM sits at “Moderate Buy” currently, with the mean price target of about $284 indicating potential upside of about 21% from here.
www.barchart.com On the date of publication, Wajeeh Khan did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. For more information please view the Barchart Disclosure Policy here.
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