The Financial Post reports in its Friday edition that Salesforce is projecting lacklustre quarterly sales growth, suggesting its artificial intelligence product is not yet paying off as quickly as hoped in the face of competition from emerging AI players. A Bloomberg dispatch to the Post says revenue will be $10.2-billion to $10.3-billion in the period ending in October, the company said (all figures U.S.). Analysts, on average, estimated $10.3-billion. Current remaining performance obligations, a measure of bookings, will increase "slightly above" 10 per cent, in line with analysts' average projections. Investors are anxious that incumbent software makers will be outperformed by new AI vendors. Companies such as Salesforce, which make applications that are charged per user, have faced the steepest skepticism because of the view that AI will take over some of the tasks they provide and reduce the work force of their customers. "Investors will have to look at the qualitative Agentforce numbers and wait for the Dreamforce conference next month to increase their enthusiasm," said Barclays analyst Raimo Lenschow. The Agentforce AI tool can do tasks such as sales development and customer management without human supervision.