The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJINDICES: ^DJI) isn't doing quite as well as the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite year to date, but it's still having a great year -- up 12.2% at the time of this writing. However, there are some key Dow components that have been drastically underperforming the index, including Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), which is down 31.0% in 2025. The only Dow stock to have a worse year so far is UnitedHealth Group.
Salesforce has tumbled 14.9% since being added to the Dow on Aug. 31, 2020. During that same period, the Dow is up 66.5%, and the S&P 500 has nearly doubled.
Here's why Salesforce has likely reached its bottom, and why investors should take a closer look at the software-as-a-service (SaaS) company for 2026.
Salesforce's growth is slowing despite its push into agentic AI
Salesforce is a textbook example of why even the most seemingly impenetrable moats are susceptible to disruption.
Salesforce specializes in customer relationship management (CRM) software, which is used by sales teams worldwide to manage customer accounts, maximize the conversion of prospects into actual sales, and more. Salesforce also owns cloud-based messaging platform, Slack, and data visualization giant, Tableau.
The company's suite of tools is embedded with many large enterprise clients, but SaaS companies like Salesforce have experienced mixed reactions from investors as a result of artificial intelligence (AI).
While AI is leading to a surge in compute, networking, and infrastructure demand, the benefits aren't as clear-cut for software. The simplest reason for the dichotomy is that AI tools are really good at enhancing the capabilities of established ecosystems, which benefits companies that combine application software with infrastructure software.
For example, Microsoft's Dynamics 365 is a CRM platform that is arguably inferior to what Salesforce offers. However, when paired with Microsoft 365, Outlook, Teams, and Azure, the system becomes a well-oiled machine, avoiding the complications that come with integrating third-party solutions like Salesforce.
Salesforce's approach to AI has been purposeful and logical. The company has been deploying AI agents through its autonomous AI platform, Agentforce. Data-powered agents can help Salesforce users sort through information, manage the sales funnel, and act on data to maximize conversions. Agentforce appears to be a catalyst for growth on paper, but the pricing model is based partially on add-ons per user. Here's where things get tricky.