Why Did CRM Stock Rise Over 1% After Hours?

Salesforce reportedly won its biggest defence contract ever.

• Stock jumps after the company wins a $5.6 billion, 10-year military contract.
• CRM has been under pressure amid a broad sell-off in the software space, amid concerns that AI is replacing niche software. 
• Stock currently trades near a 19-month low.

Salesforce, Inc.’s stock jumped 1.5% in extended trading on Monday, after the company said it secured a $5.6 billion contract from the U.S. military.

The company will deploy its technology through its wholly owned subsidiary, Computable Insights, as part of the 10-year deal. It is said to be the largest defence contract Salesforce has secured to date, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Under the contract, the Army and the Department of War will use Salesforce’s cloud to make faster decisions, improve operations, and better support military personnel, the company said. It would also allow them to consolidate scattered data into a single system, enabling warfighters to act more quickly and effectively, while bringing army recruiters onto the Slack messaging app.

Salesforce's stock closed 0.6% higher at $229.40 on Monday, after hitting a 19-month low last week. 

In recent weeks, investors have aggressively sold down positions in specialty software companies — dragging down shares of Adobe, Intuit, and others — amid growing concerns that increasingly capable AI tools could reduce the need for certain niche software products.

Over the past year, Salesforce has pushed hard into AI agents to automate workflows, but the strategy has yet to gain strong traction as customers remain cautious on costs, data readiness, and tangible returns from agentic tools.

In September, Salesforce formed Missionforce, an industry-focused offering for government and defense agencies, and later rolled out a special version of Slack that adheres to Defense Department security standards.

On Stocktwits, retail sentiment for CRM was ‘bullish,’ unchanged from the previous day. Shares of the company have fallen by more than 13% so far this year.

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