Salesforce Gains After Bank of America Flips to Buy, While ServiceNow Rises and Palantir Holds Steady

Salesforce advanced about 3% after Bank of America reversed course on the enterprise software name, moving its rating from Underperform to Buy and setting a $285 price target, according to market commentary carried by Yahoo Finance. The update arrives as investors continue to weigh how artificial intelligence will affect the demand for customer relationship management and other business software used by enterprises to run sales, service, and marketing operations.

The brokerage said in its note that the AI-related risk that had spooked some investors was “overblown,” the Yahoo Finance piece said. The implication is that even as AI changes how companies engage customers and manage workflows, Salesforce may still be positioned to capture the spending that comes with those upgrades, rather than face a sustained drop in software adoption.

Bank of America’s call highlights the central debate for big business software vendors in 2026. AI can be interpreted in two ways by investors: as a potential shortcut that reduces the amount of software enterprises need, or as a catalyst that increases feature depth and accelerates adoption of existing platforms. The upgrade suggests the bank sees the second dynamic as more likely, at least for Salesforce over the near term.

In the same market snapshot, ServiceNow, another major enterprise automation platform, climbed roughly 3%, according to the same Yahoo Finance write-up. Palantir was described as holding steady, with no similar upward or downward move emphasized in the report’s headline summary.

For Salesforce, the immediate takeaway for investors is not only the price target level, but also the indicating effect of a major brokerage’s shift. In Wall Street coverage, upgrades and target changes are often used as a proxy for changes in assumptions around growth, margins, and competitive positioning. In this case, the differentiator in the commentary is the assessment that AI disruption fears were exaggerated.

Salesforce’s products, including its customer data and workflow tooling, sit at the center of enterprise customer engagement and service operations. As companies deploy AI assistants and automation to support sales and customer support, platforms like Salesforce are typically evaluated on whether they can embed AI capabilities into existing work streams and data models, rather than forcing customers to adopt a separate stack.

Even with the upbeat rating change, the market move still depends on how the next results period plays out. The Yahoo Finance piece indicates that the credibility of the upgrade could hinge on one upcoming quarter, though it does not provide additional details in the information available here. That means investors may quickly sort whether the bank’s reassessment aligns with Salesforce’s reported execution on revenue trends and product momentum.

What the cited market commentary does not spell out is the precise set of financial assumptions behind the $285 target, such as specific growth expectations, margin forecasts, or any detailed breakdown of AI-related usage. It also does not quote Salesforce management or provide granular metrics from an investor presentation. As a result, readers should treat the upgrade as a directional announcement from the brokerage rather than a fully evidenced revision based on newly disclosed company data in the cited post.