The news
At the Salesforce Investor Day on September 16, 2026, Salesforce (CRM) reaffirmed a target of more than $63 billion in fiscal 2030 revenue and projected returning 190% of fiscal 2027 free cash flow to shareholders, pushing back on fears that AI will undercut its business.
The event, held during the company's Dreamforce conference in San Francisco, came with a Form 8-K filing that attached the investor presentation. The deck said the revenue goal implies compound annual growth of 11% or more from fiscal 2026 to fiscal 2030, including acquired data-management company Informatica, and that the targets include the impact of Informatica and other acquisitions announced to date.
The figure was not new. Salesforce's fourth-quarter release on February 25, 2026, said the company was well on its way to $63 billion in fiscal 2030 revenue, and Financial News described the Investor Day number as a reaffirmation. Analysts polled by LSEG had expected fiscal 2030 revenue of $59.2 billion, CNBC reported.
On capital returns, the presentation highlighted a $25 billion accelerated share repurchase (ASR), in which a company buys a large block of shares up front through a bank, and described it as the largest ever. It projected a share-count reduction of at least 14% and put cumulative shareholder returns at more than $60 billion. Salesforce announced a $50 billion repurchase authorization in February and said in August that final settlement of the ASR was expected in October 2026.
Chair and CEO Marc Benioff told the gathering that the Anthropic shares Salesforce bought for hundreds of millions of dollars would likely be worth tens of billions, CNBC reported. "We'll end up probably selling it," he said of the stake, describing a sale as a way to pay off the company's ASR debt.
The event took place against what CNBC called the SaaSpocalypse narrative, the investor worry that increasingly capable AI models will erode demand for business software, which it said had punished Salesforce and other software makers. The deck cited forecasts of 35% compound annual growth for AI software, platforms and agents, against 3% for non-AI software, and said nine of the top 10 AI companies build on Salesforce.
The numbers
- Fiscal 2030 revenue target (reaffirmed)
- More than $63 billion
- Implied growth, FY26 to FY30
- 11%+ compound annual, including Informatica
- Share of FY27 free cash flow returned (projected)
- 190%
- Accelerated share repurchase
- $25 billion
- Expected share-count reduction
- At least 14%
- LSEG analyst consensus for FY30 revenue (per CNBC)
- $59.2 billion
Why CEOs should care
For software buyers, a vendor promising 11%-plus annual growth to 2030 while handing back more than its free cash flow will look hard for revenue from existing accounts. Expect renewal proposals built around premium AI bundles and usage-based credits. Negotiate multi-year price caps, ask for AI features to be priced separately from core seats so you can drop them, and benchmark against rivals before committing to longer terms.
For CFOs and investors, the capital plan leans on two things outside day-to-day operations: borrowing to fund the ASR and a potential sale of the Anthropic stake to repay it, which Benioff described as likely but not certain. A shrinking share count lifts per-share figures even without faster growth, and the revenue target includes acquisitions. When comparing Salesforce with peers, separate organic growth, acquired revenue and buyback effects.
For boards of other software companies, Salesforce has set out a template for answering AI-disruption worries: a firm long-range revenue number, aggressive buybacks while the stock is down and acquisitions that bolt AI capabilities onto the core product. Boards weighing a similar move should test whether their balance sheet and growth rate can carry it.
The bigger picture
Investor Day followed a sharp turn in sentiment. On August 26, Salesforce reported second-quarter revenue up 11% to $11.3 billion and raised its fiscal 2027 revenue forecast to $46.1 billion to $46.4 billion; CNBC said profit was boosted by a $2.6 billion gain on its Anthropic investment and the stock jumped almost 23%, its best performance since 2020. The Investor Day targets try to turn that one quarter into a multiyear story, with the $63 billion goal resting on AI products growing fast enough to offset slower non-AI software.
What happened next
In a September 28, 2026 recap of Dreamforce announcements, Salesforce listed its new job-ready AI agents and said most were generally available. What to watch: final settlement of the $25 billion ASR, which Salesforce expected in October 2026, and third-quarter results for the period ending October 31, 2026, the first test of the targets.
