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I remember using like just sitting in, listening to AI day for a company like Salesforce. I was really excited and there's so much that we're going to see within copilots in the B2B landscape. Where does Salesforce and and what were set to hear from them when they report earnings. What do they need to say to to really signal to the street that there's the opportunity for them to add on to how they're selling in to their existing client base with this new technology?

Yeah, Salesforce is a really interesting one because by all logic, it should be a major beneficiary of generative AI because they have data, they have distribution, they have a giant customer base. It should be easy to cross sell. What I've been kind of seeing out of Salesforce, quite candidly, is a little bit disappointing on the AI front. Uh and and this is kind of backed up by talking to customers and partners as well. Is they really want to see more out of Salesforce when it comes to AI. So to get to the question of, what can Salesforce do? I think it's going to require a lot more than talking on the earnings call. Um, it's really going to require, you know, they have their user conference Dreamforce uh next month and and you know, right after here in San Francisco. I think they need to show us real innovation around AI that they are actually investing aggressively to be AI first to to treat AI not just as a feature that you're adding on, but really fundamentally changing the way that sales people work. Because that's really what the cloud did, right? That's what Salesforce did. Salesforce changed the way sales people sold to their prospects and to their customers. And I think generative AI is going to do the same thing and Salesforce needs to show that level of innovation and and I'm hopeful that when we're all, you know, talking after Dreamforce, we start to see some signs of that.

Rishi, we saw last quarter Salesforce had the biggest one day decline since I think early 2004 off of their earnings due to some of the points that you just mentioned here and you can see there on your screen. The stock's been under pressure over the past three months. If we get tough results from Salesforce again this time around, could that put pressure on the overall AI trade that's been driving the market narrative for so long?

You know, I I I do worry about the the results for Salesforce. Uh we still be reporting Wednesday. Um, because there is potential kind of based on mixed checks out there for growth rates to come down further. Recall, this used to be uh a consistent 20% plus grower. Now we're talking about it in double digits and if it actually dropped below double digits, you'll have a narrative shift. However, I think the good news for the entire AI trade is it doesn't feel to me like Salesforce is one of those names that investors are looking down as looking at as a hands-down AI beneficiary in the way that they are looking at companies like, you know, Microsoft or Nvidia or Meta. And so I I don't think weak results out of Salesforce would necessarily unwind the AI trade. However, weak results out of Salesforce would make people worried about the macro environment and software and maybe it continues to be really soft out there.