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Time of India
9 hours ago
- Business
- Time of India
India's digital businesses are innovating faster with data & AI, says Databricks founder
India's digital-native businesses are artificial intelligence (AI)-hungry and ahead of the curve from global peers when it comes to innovation with data and AI , said Ali Ghodsi, founder and chief executive of Databricks . 'India's great because when the rest of the world is talking about recession, India is on the upswing. And in the last decade, they've built a lot of digital infrastructure in India, which is a game-changer. India's ahead on digital infrastructure compared to most other countries in the world,' Ghodsi said while addressing the media at the Databricks Data + AI Summit in San Francisco on Wednesday. The Silicon Valley's data and AI company Databricks recently committed a $250 million investment in India over the next three years towards local R&D, talent development, and enterprise adoption of AI. "We're doubling down on Bangalore. We hired a huge engineering team. We target the IITs," he said, mentioning an instance where the company received 700 applications from IIT graduates for just four open positions in Bangalore. Ghodsi said that the company is extremely bullish on Asian markets, including India, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, which are moving faster than the rest of the world on AI because of the relaxed regulatory environment. 'We're investing ahead of the game there. We're not just looking at how much revenue we get? Is the ROI there? Instead. We're saying, let's put even more there than the numbers justify, because we're so bullish on what's happening in Asia,' he said. At the annual conference on Wednesday, Databricks made a slew of bold announcements challenging traditional players in database management, AI apps and agents. Here's a rundown of key announcements: Agent bricks Taking a fresh approach to agentic AI, Databricks is focusing on the quality and cost of productising agents with 'Agent Bricks', an offering that directly challenges Salesforce's Agent Force and Google's Agent Space. 'There are a lot of challenges in the industry around building agents. We can't evaluate the quality of the agents. We don't know how these agents are doing in production,' Ghodsi said, adding that there are no evaluations or benchmarks for judging the performance of agents. Hence, Databricks is introducing LLM judges for automated evaluations. Agent Bricks' auto optimisation techniques, such as knowledge extraction and multi-agent supervisor can refine the agent for the best quality output, sometimes at 10 times lower cost. Lakebase Challenging the traditional database platforms like Oracle Database, MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, and PostgreSQL, Databricks announced Lakebase, a first-of-its-kind fully-managed Postgres database built for AI. 'We think that's going to disrupt the existing database market, which has really not changed much in 40 years. But I think now is the time where it's actually under a lot of pressure with agents coming in,' Ghodsi said, adding that the company is targeting a $100 billion total addressable market with Lakebase. Databricks, last month, announced the acquisition of Neon, a leading serverless Postgres company, which showed that over 30% of the databases at Neon were actually created by agents, not by database administrators. 'So next year, it's probably 99% plus.' Therefore, in the new AI era, enterprises need different types of databases where compute and storage are completely separated, he explained. 'You just store the database on very cheap cloud storage in an open format so you're not locked into anyone (single vendor).' Over 300 Databricks customers are already using Lakebase, and this transition is going to be the most important marathon for the next five years, he said. Databricks free edition To close the AI talent gap, Databricks also announced the free edition of its platform, along with a $100 million global investment in data and AI education. This initiative gives students, professionals, and institutions free access to Databricks tools and training. Among other notable announcements made was the Lakeflow Designer, a new no-code capability that lets non-technical users create data pipelines using a visual drag-and-drop interface and a natural language GenAI assistant. (The reporter was in San Francisco at the invitation of Databricks)
Economic Times
20 hours ago
- Business
- Economic Times
India's digital businesses are innovating faster with Data + AI, says Databricks founder
Live Events India's digital-native businesses are artificial intelligence (AI)-hungry and ahead of the curve from global peers when it comes to innovation with data and AI , said Ali Ghodsi, founder and chief executive of Databricks 'India's great because when the rest of the world is talking about recession, India is on the upswing. And in the last decade, they've built a lot of digital infrastructure in India, which is a game-changer. India's ahead on digital infrastructure compared to most other countries in the world,' Ghodsi said while addressing the media at the Databricks Data + AI Summit in San Francisco on Silicon Valley's data and AI company Databricks recently committed a $250 million investment in India over the next three years towards local R&D, talent development, and enterprise adoption of AI."We're doubling down on Bangalore. We hired a huge engineering team. We target the IITs," he said, mentioning an instance where the company received 700 applications from IIT graduates for just four open positions in said that the company is extremely bullish on Asian markets, including India, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, which are moving faster than the rest of the world on AI because of the relaxed regulatory environment.'We're investing ahead of the game there. We're not just looking at how much revenue we get? Is the ROI there? Instead. We're saying, let's put even more there than the numbers justify, because we're so bullish on what's happening in Asia,' he the annual conference on Wednesday, Databricks made a slew of bold announcements challenging traditional players in database management, AI apps and agents. Here's a rundown of key announcements:Taking a fresh approach to agentic AI, Databricks is focusing on the quality and cost of productising agents with 'Agent Bricks', an offering that directly challenges Salesforce's Agent Force and Google's Agent Space.'There are a lot of challenges in the industry around building agents. We can't evaluate the quality of the agents. We don't know how these agents are doing in production,' Ghodsi said, adding that there are no evaluations or benchmarks for judging the performance of Databricks is introducing LLM judges for automated evaluations. Agent Bricks' auto optimisation techniques, such as knowledge extraction and multi-agent supervisor can refine the agent for the best quality output, sometimes at 10 times lower the traditional database platforms like Oracle Database, MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, and PostgreSQL, Databricks announced Lakebase, a first-of-its-kind fully-managed Postgres database built for AI.'We think that's going to disrupt the existing database market, which has really not changed much in 40 years. But I think now is the time where it's actually under a lot of pressure with agents coming in,' Ghodsi said, adding that the company is targeting a $100 billion total addressable market with last month, announced the acquisition of Neon, a leading serverless Postgres company, which showed that over 30% of the databases at Neon were actually created by agents, not by database administrators. 'So next year, it's probably 99% plus.'Therefore, in the new AI era, enterprises need different types of databases where compute and storage are completely separated, he explained. 'You just store the database on very cheap cloud storage in an open format so you're not locked into anyone (single vendor).'Over 300 Databricks customers are already using Lakebase, and this transition is going to be the most important marathon for the next five years, he close the AI talent gap, Databricks also announced the free edition of its platform, along with a $100 million global investment in data and AI education. This initiative gives students, professionals, and institutions free access to Databricks tools and other notable announcements made was the Lakeflow Designer, a new no-code capability that lets non-technical users create data pipelines using a visual drag-and-drop interface and a natural language GenAI assistant.(The reporter was in San Francisco at the invitation of Databricks)
Time of India
20 hours ago
- Business
- Time of India
India's digital businesses are innovating faster with Data + AI, says Databricks founder
Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads India's digital-native businesses are artificial intelligence (AI)-hungry and ahead of the curve from global peers when it comes to innovation with data and AI , said Ali Ghodsi, founder and chief executive of Databricks 'India's great because when the rest of the world is talking about recession, India is on the upswing. And in the last decade, they've built a lot of digital infrastructure in India, which is a game-changer. India's ahead on digital infrastructure compared to most other countries in the world,' Ghodsi said while addressing the media at the Databricks Data + AI Summit in San Francisco on Silicon Valley's data and AI company Databricks recently committed a $250 million investment in India over the next three years towards local R&D, talent development, and enterprise adoption of AI."We're doubling down on Bangalore. We hired a huge engineering team. We target the IITs," he said, mentioning an instance where the company received 700 applications from IIT graduates for just four open positions in said that the company is extremely bullish on Asian markets, including India, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, which are moving faster than the rest of the world on AI because of the relaxed regulatory environment.'We're investing ahead of the game there. We're not just looking at how much revenue we get? Is the ROI there? Instead. We're saying, let's put even more there than the numbers justify, because we're so bullish on what's happening in Asia,' he the annual conference on Wednesday, Databricks made a slew of bold announcements challenging traditional players in database management, AI apps and agents. Here's a rundown of key announcements:Taking a fresh approach to agentic AI, Databricks is focusing on the quality and cost of productising agents with 'Agent Bricks', an offering that directly challenges Salesforce's Agent Force and Google's Agent Space.'There are a lot of challenges in the industry around building agents. We can't evaluate the quality of the agents. We don't know how these agents are doing in production,' Ghodsi said, adding that there are no evaluations or benchmarks for judging the performance of Databricks is introducing LLM judges for automated evaluations. Agent Bricks' auto optimisation techniques, such as knowledge extraction and multi-agent supervisor can refine the agent for the best quality output, sometimes at 10 times lower the traditional database platforms like Oracle Database, MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, and PostgreSQL, Databricks announced Lakebase, a first-of-its-kind fully-managed Postgres database built for AI.'We think that's going to disrupt the existing database market, which has really not changed much in 40 years. But I think now is the time where it's actually under a lot of pressure with agents coming in,' Ghodsi said, adding that the company is targeting a $100 billion total addressable market with last month, announced the acquisition of Neon, a leading serverless Postgres company, which showed that over 30% of the databases at Neon were actually created by agents, not by database administrators. 'So next year, it's probably 99% plus.'Therefore, in the new AI era, enterprises need different types of databases where compute and storage are completely separated, he explained. 'You just store the database on very cheap cloud storage in an open format so you're not locked into anyone (single vendor).'Over 300 Databricks customers are already using Lakebase, and this transition is going to be the most important marathon for the next five years, he close the AI talent gap, Databricks also announced the free edition of its platform, along with a $100 million global investment in data and AI education. This initiative gives students, professionals, and institutions free access to Databricks tools and other notable announcements made was the Lakeflow Designer, a new no-code capability that lets non-technical users create data pipelines using a visual drag-and-drop interface and a natural language GenAI assistant.(The reporter was in San Francisco at the invitation of Databricks)
Business Insider
2 days ago
- Business
- Business Insider
How Investors Can Capitalize on Soft Salesforce (CRM) Fundamentals via the Options Market
On paper, cloud-based software company Salesforce (CRM) has done enough to justify investor confidence. Last month, the company disclosed its results for the first quarter, which saw revenue hit $9.83 billion. This tally marked an 8% increase year-over-year, driven in part by a 9% rise in subscription and support revenue in constant currency. Further, AgentForce, a standout product, surpassed the $100 million mark in annual recurring revenue. Confident Investing Starts Here: Easily unpack a company's performance with TipRanks' new KPI Data for smart investment decisions Receive undervalued, market resilient stocks right to your inbox with TipRanks' Smart Value Newsletter Still, the print didn't impress Erste Group, which downgraded CRM stock to Hold from Buy. Experts at the firm cited concerns over slower sales and profit growth in the current year. To be fair, Erste acknowledged that Salesforce remains a leader in customer service, marketing automation, and AI-driven data analysis. Unfortunately, besides the slowed growth, the competition is catching up. Additionally, the top and bottom lines are expected to be lower than they were last year. Other analysts stated that Salesforce merely cleared a 'low bar' and that the company hasn't demonstrated convincingly that it can address broader concerns, particularly macroeconomic headwinds. As such, CRM stock may not appear attractive to some investors. Since the start of the year, the stock has fallen 18%. Despite the challenging backdrop, the market will ultimately decide where CRM stock heads next, and there may be an underappreciated quantitative signal that could be favoring the bulls. Narratives Provide Color, Not Certainty While it may be tempting to dismiss CRM stock based on analysts' opinions, it should be noted that narratives generally provide context and color. However, they typically represent poor predictors of forward valuation. Even when applying the traditional methodologies of fundamental and technical analysis, they can't reliably forecast the future. To be clear, technical and fundamental methodologies may provide subjective guideposts, thus potentially offering some heuristic value. Still, the core vulnerability of standard market analysis is that the underlying framework suffers from what's known as the 'non-stationarity problem.' That's a fancy way of saying that the metric of comparison drifts — and often wildly — across vast periods and sentiment regimes. For example, CRM stock trades hands for roughly $275 at the time of writing. Five years ago, the equity could be had for about $174. Ten years ago, the price per share was around $72. Therefore, it would be nonsensical to conduct statistical analyses, such as price clustering, on such vast price ranges. In other words, the price action of a decade ago has no bearing on contemporary price discovery. Over time, CRM can underperform or outperform, so the critical factor is timing. The same problem can be observed on the fundamental side. One could argue that CRM stock is priced at nearly 34x trailing earnings, but there is no first-order principle that such a metric holds any significance. Moreover, several catalysts can significantly alter this ratio, including business expansion, industry transitions, share dilution, and buybacks. Essentially, these analytical frameworks don't share a unified language throughout the dataset, which contributes to the fragility of their forward projections. To provide a better solution, one must impose stationarity — and that's where market breadth comes into the picture. Using Statistics to Capitalize on CRM Stock At its core, market breadth is the pattern of accumulation and distribution. In other words, market breadth is a representation of demand, and demand is binary — it's either happening or it's not. Plus, from a statistical standpoint, demand is a discrete event that is easily categorizable and quantifiable across time. The key advantage of utilizing discrete events is that they facilitate comparative analysis. A demand profile that materialized a decade ago remains relevant if it appears today. That's the benefit of compressing — or abstracting to use the proper lexicon — price discovery into a binary code: analysts can develop probability matrices, focusing on how one demand profile (or behavioral state) transitions to another. With CRM stock, in the past two months, the security printed a '6-4-U' sequence: six up weeks, four down weeks, with a net positive trajectory across the 10-week period. Notably, in 61.21% of cases, the following week's price action results in upside, with a median return of 2.23%. If the implications of the 6-4-U pan out as projected, CRM stock could potentially hit $280.63 by the end of June. To note, CRM isn't the most exciting entity from a kinetic point of view. However, if the bulls maintain control of the market, the security could swing toward the $282 to $285 range over the next four weeks. Primarily, the setup incentivizes a bullish posture because of the baseline probability. On any given week, the chance that CRM stock will rise is 55.5%, which is a solid upward bias. However, the 6-4-U sequence adds almost six percentage points of 'free odds' for the bullish speculator. For those interested in playing the numbers game, the 275/280 bull call spread expiring June 20 is a tempting proposition. This transaction involves buying the $275 call and simultaneously selling the $280 call, for a net debit paid of $248. Should CRM stock rise through the short strike price at expiration, the maximum reward is $252, a payout of almost 102%. Mainly, this trade is attractive because of the statistical response to the 6-4-U sequence. As a betting person, the odds suggest that the coming week will be a positive one. From a median performance view, the 2.23% return would drive CRM stock above the $280 short strike target. Of course, probabilities are precisely that — probabilities, not guarantees. If you want additional time for the trade to pan out, you may consider the 275/280 bull spread expiring a week later. However, keep in mind that the net debit required at the time of writing is $290, and the maximum payout is significantly lower, at around 72%. Is Salesforce a Buy, Sell, or Hold? Among professional market analysts, CRM stock carries a Moderate Buy consensus rating based on 34 Buys, 10 Holds, and three Sell ratings accrued over the past three months. The average CRM stock price target is $348.49, implying 28% upside potential over the next year. Statistical Approach Can Deliver Returns Despite Wall Street Doubts From an investment perspective, Salesforce may face some challenges amid increasing scrutiny on Wall Street. However, from a trading standpoint, CRM stock could present a compelling opportunity. The key consideration is the thesis that market breadth and demand dynamics predominantly influence CRM's share price. By applying rigorous statistical analysis to these factors, options traders can identify a meaningful edge.
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Salesforce, Inc. (CRM): A Bull Case Theory
We came across a bullish thesis on Salesforce, Inc. (CRM) on Compounding Your Wealth's Substack. In this article, we will summarize the bulls' thesis on CRM. Salesforce, Inc. (CRM)'s share was trading at $265.37 as of 30th May. CRM's trailing and forward P/E were 41.53 and 23.47 respectively according to Yahoo Finance. Pixabay/Public Domain Salesforce delivered solid Q1 FY2026 results, posting $9.83 billion in revenue, up 11% year-over-year, with subscription and support revenue growing 12% in constant currency. Remaining performance obligations (RPO) reached $60.9 billion, up 13%, reflecting strong demand visibility. Operating cash flow rose 4% to $6.5 billion. Salesforce reaffirmed its full-year guidance, including a 34% non-GAAP operating margin and 9–10% free cash flow growth. Sales Cloud drove 80% of large enterprise deals, with strength in verticals like financial services, healthcare, and retail. Account executive headcount is set to expand by 22% this year. Internationally, growth was robust in Canada, the UK, France, and South Asia, while Japan showed signs of acceleration. The company's AI initiatives are scaling rapidly—AgentForce, a generative AI product, now has over 4,000 paying customers and was featured in 800+ customer deployments, with potential to reach $1 billion in annualized revenue. Data Cloud surpassed $1 billion in ARR and is processing 22 trillion records, up 175% year-over-year. Tableau, MuleSoft, and Slack were also prominent in major deals, as customers increasingly adopt cross-cloud solutions. Salesforce highlighted Slack's evolution into an enterprise AI interface, improving lead routing times dramatically from 20 minutes to 19 seconds. The recent Informatica acquisition aims to enhance data harmonization and accelerate AI capabilities. Salesforce introduced Flex Credits, a usage-based pricing model reflecting early-stage but growing AI consumption. Notable customer wins included PepsiCo, OpenTable, and Takeda. The company raised its FY26 revenue outlook to $41.3 billion, underscoring its transformation toward data, AI, and unified platform-driven growth. Previously, we have covered Salesforce, Inc. (CRM) in April 2025 wherein we summarized a by Quality Equities on Substack. In the article, Salesforce (CRM) was highlighted as a structurally resilient, high-margin software business undervalued due to macroeconomic fears. The article argued that the market was underestimating Salesforce's long-term free cash flow growth, despite strong fundamentals, improving margins, and rising AI-driven innovation. Since our last coverage, the stock is up 13% as of 30th May. Salesforce, Inc. (CRM) is on our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds. As per our database, 140 hedge fund portfolios held CRM at the end of the first quarter which was 162 in the previous quarter. While we acknowledge the potential of CRM as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and have limited downside risk. If you are looking for an extremely cheap AI stock that is also a major beneficiary of Trump tariffs and onshoring, see our free report on the best short-term AI stock. READ NEXT: 8 Best Wide Moat Stocks to Buy Now and 30 Most Important AI Stocks According to BlackRock. Disclosure: None. This article was originally published at Insider Monkey. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
