“AI is not a grave digger”: Bank of America doubles its share of CRM.US (CRM.US), and the $30 million acquisition ignites software stock revaluation

The Zhitong Finance App noticed that CRM.US (CRM.US) became the focus of the US stock software sector on Monday: the company announced that it had signed a final agreement to acquire Israeli AI analytics startup Loops and plan to integrate its technology and team into Tableau; at about the same time, Bank of America rarely directly upgraded the stock rating from “outperforming the market” to “buy”, and the target price jumped from $160 to $285.

Under the double advantage, SAFTSE surged 5.1% during the intraday period, but it still rose about 1.5% at the close.

Judging from the deal itself, this is a typical “technology+talent” type merger and acquisition. No terms were disclosed by either party. The market estimates that the transaction amount is approximately US$30 million and is expected to be completed in early November of SAFTSE's 2027 fiscal year.

Loops was founded in 2020 by CEO Tom Laufer and Chief Technology Officer Ido Adif. Its platform is known for machine learning and causal analysis, and focuses on answering “why the metrics changed” rather than just “what happened”; the AI agent Scout, which was launched last year, can also actively push insights through Slack and email. Saifushi said the acquisition will advance its “proxy analysis” strategy, allowing customers to move from looking at reports to having AI directly drive action.

Analysts' opinions are the real driver of this recovery. Bank of America analyst Tal Liani said bluntly in the report that AI will not disrupt enterprise software; instead, it will “deepen companies' dependence on these platforms” — platforms that carry business logic, data, workflow, and compliance systems, and are difficult to be replaced by customers.

Bank of America pointed out that Safrus has adopted a “two-pronged” strategy. On the one hand, Slack is used to control user interaction, and on the other hand, it also opens up data and workflow to third-party interfaces such as Claude. This approach could weaken Salesforce's own user interface. “Therefore, we see Seflex's approach as a pragmatic hedging strategy to control the user interface through Slackforce as much as possible while providing access to external interfaces to keep the data and its context within the company.” The analyst said.

Bank of America also raised its subscription revenue growth forecast for the 2028 and 2029 fiscal years, and fixed the valuation at 16 times the 2027 free cash flow. Notably, Liani also warned of the structural impact of AI on enterprise software in May of this year. This “self-inversion” was interpreted as a collective surrender of sellers' pessimism about enterprise software.

Fundamentals are also providing ammunition for bulls. As of the second fiscal quarter at the end of July, Agentforce's annualized recurring revenue (ARR) exceeded US$1.5 billion, an increase of more than 240%; Agentforce and Data 360's combined ARR was close to US$3.9 billion, an increase of more than 210%; and the current remaining performance obligations increased by about 14% year over year to US$33.5 billion. The company is also promoting a new pay-as-you-go pricing model to hedge against concerns about “AI alternative software seats.”

Of course, the sound of caution has not disappeared. The bearers pointed out that the share of AI-related revenue is still small. If customer adoption slows down, financial disbursement may be delayed, and high short positions also reflect that some capital is still on the sidelines.

Overall, the $30 million acquisition alone wasn't enough to rewrite SAFTSE's revenue curve, but it coincided with an inflection point in sellers' sentiment. Market consensus is emerging: AI is not the “gravedigger” of enterprise software, but may be its new source of pricing power — the next financial report will test whether this optimistic story can be fulfilled.