Salesforce Edges Out Oracle as Better Enterprise AI Stock

Enterprise AI stocks Oracle and Salesforce have not had a great run in recent years. While both companies are making significant moves into artificial intelligence, their stock prices have taken a hit. Oracle's stock has plummeted 55% over the past year, while Salesforce is down around 3%. However, with the AI boom still in its early stages, investors believe that both companies could be long-term winners.

Oracle is making a major push into AI by building its cloud infrastructure business, which provides computing power to tech companies for their AI needs. The company has secured contracts from OpenAI, Meta, Nvidia, and others, with its cloud infrastructure sales soaring 121% year over year in the first quarter of 2027 to $7.4 billion. Analysts believe that Oracle is making the right move by transforming into an AI hyperscaler.

However, Oracle's capital expenditures have skyrocketed 235% in the first quarter to $28.5 billion, with investors concerned about whether building expensive AI data centers will be worth the investment. The company's new data center project, Project Jupiter, is facing delays and cost overruns, with a total project cost of $165 billion.

Salesforce, on the other hand, has been adapting to the shift towards AI by implementing more AI services and integrations into its customer relationship management software. The company has struck deals with Alphabet and Anthropic to integrate AI models into its platform, and has seen success in its second-quarter fiscal 2027 sales of $11.3 billion, which were up 11% from the year-ago quarter.

Analysts believe that Salesforce's current moves are addressing the issues posed by artificial intelligence disruption adequately, and that some companies will feel more comfortable continuing to use legacy software that integrates AI rather than replacing it with AI-first tools. While Oracle is spending heavily on its transition to AI, Salesforce is not spending as much.