Stock Market Today, Aug. 27: Salesforce Surges 23% on Anthropic Partnership and Q2 Earnings Beat

CRM jumped 22.6% on August 27, 2026, driven by a second-quarter earnings beat, raised full-year guidance, and a new AI partnership with Anthropic to build Claudeforce. The enterprise software giant posted 11% sales growth and 14% expansion in remaining performance obligations, a key indicator of future revenue visibility. Agentic workforce units—CRM's AI-driven automation offering—surged 97% year-over-year, signaling accelerating adoption of generative AI tools inside the installed base.

The Anthropic tie-up extends CRM's positioning in the enterprise AI stack, integrating Claude models directly into the platform. Peers NOW and WDAY rallied in sympathy as enthusiasm spread across the enterprise software vertical.

CRM's guidance raise suggests management sees sustained demand for AI-enhanced workflow tools, even as broader software spending faces scrutiny. The 97% growth in agentic units underscores the company's pivot from traditional CRM modules to autonomous agents that execute tasks with minimal human oversight.