Enterprise CRM JUL 27, 2026

CRM growth slides into single digits as Alphabet's $205B capex plan breaks the AI-spend truce

Alphabet's free cash flow turned negative for the first time since its 2004 IPO the same quarter PitchBook's Q2 comp sheet dropped CRM, sales and marketing SaaS into single-digit growth.

BY GRETA REINHART · ENTERPRISE SAAS

Alphabet shares fell more than 7% on Thursday, the worst single session in over a year, after the company raised its 2026 capital expenditure guide to as much as $205 billion and disclosed that Q2 free cash flow had turned negative for the first time since its 2004 IPO. Bloomberg framed the reaction as a market in revolt over AI spending. That’s one read. The other is that public-market patience with hyperscaler capex just collided with a much quieter story in the software layer beneath it.

PitchBook’s Q2 2026 Enterprise SaaS Public Comp Sheet lifted median revenue growth for the universe to 13.2%, up from 12.2% in Q1. The composite improved because DevOps, ITOps and developer/automation platforms grew 21.9%. Underneath the median, CRM, sales and marketing, CX, and collaboration/productivity have all slipped into single digits.

Salesforce is the bellwether nobody wants to be. On July 9, KeyBanc cut CRM to Sector Weight from Overweight and Bernstein moved it to Sector Weight from Outperform on the same day, both citing slower-than-headline adoption of Agentforce. The stock traded down 3% to 4% intraday before steadying. CNBC had already sketched the internal tension in late June: CEO Marc Benioff pitching “Agentforce Coworker” inside core applications, while analyst Rob Luria argued Salesforce is neglecting its core business and leaning too hard on the AI pivot.

First Analysis published the harder number. Its go-to-market group lost 4.0% on average in Q2, with declines in six of ten names including CRM and ServiceNow and ZoomInfo down 51.0%, even as the broader SaaS universe gained 18.9%. Multiples across SaaS remain 40% to 50% below mid-2025 levels. The report still argues that “many software stocks will be the leaders in bringing AI solutions to their customers,” which is either conviction or throat-clearing depending on where you sit.

The read-through is that AI-native outbound tooling, Clay, Regie.ai, and LemonLime among them, is now being underwritten as a leaner alternative to Agentforce rather than a feature adjacent to it. Salesforce’s next print becomes the referendum on whether Agentforce is a growth engine or a line item. The 2008 TARP framing worked because the number was too large to argue with; $205 billion in one company’s capex is starting to function the same way for the buy side.

Sources

About the author

Greta Reinhart

ENTERPRISE SAAS

Greta Reinhart tracks the enterprise software stack from San Francisco — data platforms, AI bundling, seat pricing, and channel checks across the largest SaaS vendors. She files on go-to-market shifts, packaging changes, and quarterly enterprise reads.