Even as it disrupts its own pricing model, Salesforce continues to post up strong numbers. But as the macro and micro outlook for tech investment remains somewhat fuzzy – is there an opportunity for some established vendors and some AI-native startups to severely disrupt Salesforce’s dominance in its key categories?
History has told us that when entities are fighting a two-front battle, things can not always go your way. In some ways, Salesforce is dealing with a two-front competitive scenario that it hasn’t really had to worry about in the past. Startups always lacked the breadth of CRM functionality to be a threat, while legacy enterprise vendors were seen as “not cloudy enough” to be an existential threat. But AI and the completion of cloud migration of enterprise platforms has changed all that.
On the enterprise front, Oracle now has a compelling CRM (and broader) application story now that Fusion apps have been well integrated with AI, all on (or off) Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. At the same time, as Microsoft continues to build out its agentic AI story – it may be able to bring its applications upmarket more effectively than in years past. And it is important to note that both of these providers have native ERP functionality that can more seamlessly power agentic AI flows.
And of course, the simple fact that ServiceNow has very explicitly stated they are targeting Salesforce should be a concern. ServiceNow has made significant inroads in building out its own enterprise CRM suite. Couple its modern CRM offerings atop a strong process-oriented platform that has been getting more and more AI added to it, and Salesforce users who need to decide if they stay all-in on Salesforce/Agentforce or re-evaluate alternatives have tough decisions ahead.
On the startup front, more and more companies are building single-use or limited use tools that are agentic and generative AI driven offerings that offer fast setup and quick time to value. These AI native startups cover many areas, but my AI SDR shortlist lists almost a dozen viable alternatives to Salesforce’s out of the box SDR Agentforce agents, just as one example. Across marketing, sales and customer support and success, there are dozens and dozens of startups offering a fast track to AI-powered process automation and cost reduction for Salesforce customers who may or may not have their instances Agentforce-ready.
These startups are most likely not going to “become the next Salesforce” by any means. However, the more these purpose-built AI native CRM and related agentic AI startups disrupt even one area of value delivery for a company like Salesforce, it can add up. And while Salesforce’s agentic AI story should and will be about playing nice with all kinds of other AI agents – the fact is that in some cases these Ai native startups may provide compelling alternatives to one or more use cases that Salesforce also looks to address.
For these startups to really put any real pressure on Salesforce, they need to offer both a clear path to product success that is measured in weeks not months. They need to solve data issues that can be rampant in CRM deployments as well as solve for data issues for Salesforce users not yet familiar with, or comfortable with the Data Cloud price tag. It’s all about value creation and disruption of Salesforce’s perceived value proposition as it brings Agentforce more and more to the foreground.
For both the enterprise head-to-head competitors, and the scrappy startups – AI is the catalyst. And how that AI can access, consume, and provide insights on various data types and sources to provide valuable and actionable intelligence is the key to success. AI is creating multiple inflection points across all of the go-to-market IT stack, and Salesforce is not alone in potentially seeing long time customers reevaluate in the age of AI.
The question remains, what is the next phase for enterprises as we move deeper into the age of AI? Do they look to rely on fewer, broader platforms with embedded AI? Or, do they take a best-of-breed type approach and start working with multiple native AI providers for key use cases to prove out foundational AI strategies? Will Salesforce weather this potential two-front battle as it has before, by making key acquisitions and mastering install base expansion?
Right now we have more questions than answers. But something feels a bit different about this phase of tech innovation, where more entrenched vendors seem more vulnerable than ever before. AI has the ability to expose just which providers are (or are not) ready for the next phase. And it is also quite possible that with the speed and alacrity with which AI is helping us code - the next world beater CRM platform may not even exist today, but as a native AI platform could be built, released and grab market share with alarming speed.
