1 AI Stock to Buy Before Its Revenue Accelerates in the Back Half of 2026

Written by Adam Levy for The Motley Fool->

AI is driving much of the incremental growth in sales at this software company.

Management just made a huge share repurchase, showing confidence in the long-term outlook.

Artificial intelligence has the potential to cause a huge shift in the software industry. That's created a ton of uncertainty for SaaS stocks, leading the market to sell off shares in most of those companies earlier this year.

While some have recovered, they're still standing on shaky ground. Companies demonstrating strong momentum in integrating AI into their products and selling AI services should produce accelerating revenue growth and help overcome the fears that struck the market earlier this year.

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One such stock set to produce AI-driven, accelerating revenue growth is Salesforce (NYSE: CRM). Despite solid first-quarter results, shares now trade below their levels ahead of the report. That could make the stock a fantastic opportunity for investors willing to weather the ongoing SaaS-pocalypse.

The metric for investors to keep their eye on at Salesforce is its artificial intelligence-related revenue. That includes Agentforce, its platform for creating AI agents, and Data 360, its data platform that unifies information from across various applications and supports AI services.

Last quarter, the two combined to produce $3.4 billion in annual recurring revenue, up more than 200% year over year. That figure notably includes $1.1 billion from its Informatica acquisition, so organic growth is close to 100%. Agentforce sales themselves passed the $1 billion annualized run rate threshold, climbing 205% year over year.

AI-related revenue remains a tiny portion of Salesforce's overall sales. However, the segment's growth accounts for a substantial share of incremental sales. As the business continues to grow rapidly at scale, it should accelerate overall revenue growth. In fact, management said investors should expect revenue growth to accelerate from the 10% to 11% growth it's experiencing in the first half of the year by the second half of fiscal 2027. That outlook is further supported by 14% growth in current remaining performance obligations in the first quarter.

Management updated its full-year 2027 guidance to a slightly narrower range of $45.9 billion to $46.2 billion in revenue for the year, up 11% at the midpoint, and earnings per share between $14.06 and $14.12. At the midpoint of its EPS guidance, the stock trades for less than 12 times this year's earnings expectations. Meanwhile, management expects it can grow its top line at an annualized rate of around 11% through fiscal 2030 while expanding its operating margin. It's no wonder it executed an accelerated share repurchase last quarter to buy back a total of $27 billion worth of the stock. Shares are cheap.

If management continues to deliver AI services and accelerate revenue growth through the back half of the year, the market may be forced to respond by boosting the share price. For now, investors appear to be in a wait-and-see mode. But the downside risk appears much smaller than the upside potential at the current price.

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Adam Levy has positions in Salesforce. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Salesforce. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Nasdaq, Inc.

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