Dan Niles on Salesforce (CRM) Agentic AI: 'This Stuff Is Not Getting Deployed At the Rate CEO Thought'

We recently published 10 Buzzing Tech and AI Stocks Everyone’s Talking About. Salesforce Inc (NYSE:CRM) is one of the stocks analysts were recently talking about.

Dan Niles, Niles Investment Management founder and portfolio manager, talked about his concerns about the lack of strong ROI on AI investments. The analyst mentioned multiple recent studies that suggest companies have yet to see significant results from their AI investments. Niles mentioned Salesforce Inc (NYSE:CRM) to prove his point:

“If you remember late last year, Salesforce Inc (NYSE:CRM) was talking about Agentic AI and they were the poster child for Agentic AI, and their stock was at an all-time record high. In August, the stock was at a 52-week low because this stuff’s not getting deployed at the rate that the CEO there thought.”

Oakmark Fund stated the following regarding Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) in its second quarter 2025 investor letter:

“Salesforce, Inc. (NYSE:CRM) is a leading technology company that offers a collection of software products aimed at providing businesses with a full front office productivity suite. We believe Salesforce is a wonderful business going through a transformation into a profitable, shareholder-focused enterprise. Since management announced their renewed focus on operating discipline a couple years ago, Salesforce’s margins have increased substantially. In our view, there is further room to improve as the company leverages its unique position to help businesses deploy AI and continues to restructure its sales organization. Since exiting our position in Salesforce in December, the stock price has declined by over 30% despite continuing to report fundamental results that are in line with our expectations. We were pleased to buy the stock, but we first established our position using a put writing strategy to lower our entry price. We believed the puts were overvalued as they implied that Salesforce was among the most volatile large companies, which was completely at odds with our assessment of its business value.”

While we acknowledge the potential of CRM as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and have limited downside risk. If you are looking for an extremely cheap AI stock that is also a major beneficiary of Trump tariffs and onshoring, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock.

READ NEXT: 30 Stocks That Should Double in 3 Years and 11 Hidden AI Stocks to Buy Right Now.

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.