SaaS Stocks Plunge in AI Storm: Atlassian, Salesforce Hit Lows

Katrin Wolf · 2026-02-23

You've probably seen the headlines by now. The market's been brutal lately, especially for SaaS companies. It feels like we're in the middle of a perfect storm, and two of the biggest names—Atlassian and Salesforce—just hit their lowest stock prices in a year. Let's talk about what's really going on here. It's not just about one bad quarter or a missed earnings target. This feels deeper, more structural. The entire tech sector is getting reshuffled right before our eyes. ### The AI Blizzard Hitting SaaS Remember when everyone was talking about the "AI gold rush"? Well, it seems the weather's turned. Investors are now looking at AI not just as an opportunity, but as a massive cost center. Companies are pouring billions into AI development, and the returns aren't showing up fast enough for Wall Street's liking. It's creating this weird tension. On one hand, you have to invest in AI to stay competitive. On the other, those investments are eating into profits and spooking investors who want to see clear paths to profitability. Salesforce spent over $20 billion on AI and data cloud acquisitions in recent years. That's a staggering amount of capital.  ### Why Atlassian and Salesforce Are Taking the Hit These aren't small players stumbling. We're talking about foundational companies in the SaaS ecosystem. Atlassian powers collaboration for thousands of teams with Jira and Confluence. Salesforce literally defined the modern CRM category. So what's hitting them so hard? - **Growth concerns:** After years of explosive expansion, growth is naturally slowing. When you're a $30 billion company like Salesforce, adding another $5 billion in revenue gets much harder. - **Profit pressure:** All that AI investment needs to show returns, and investors are getting impatient. - **Market saturation:** How many more businesses need project management tools or CRMs? The low-hanging fruit has been picked. - **Competition:** Newer, nimbler competitors are eating at the edges of their markets. It reminds me of what happened to Microsoft a decade ago. Everyone wrote them off as a legacy player, until they reinvented themselves around cloud and subscription models. The question is whether these SaaS giants can pull off similar transformations.  ### What This Means for SaaS Professionals If you're working in SaaS sales, marketing, or product development, this market shift affects you more than you might think. Budgets get tighter when stock prices fall. Hiring freezes happen. Strategic priorities shift overnight. But here's the thing—market corrections create opportunities too. When everyone's chasing the next shiny AI object, sometimes the fundamentals get overlooked. Things like: - Customer retention - Efficient growth - Solving real business problems - Sustainable pricing models One industry veteran put it well: "The market rewards different things at different times. Right now, it's punishing growth-at-all-costs and rewarding profitability and clear paths to ROI." ### Looking Beyond the Headlines It's easy to get caught up in the daily stock price movements. But successful companies play the long game. Both Atlassian and Salesforce have weathered storms before. They have massive customer bases, strong recurring revenue, and yes—significant resources to navigate this AI transition. The real test won't be this quarter's earnings. It will be whether they can leverage AI to create genuine value for customers, not just check a box for investors. Can they make AI tools that actually help teams collaborate better or salespeople sell more efficiently? That's what matters in the end. Not the stock price today, but whether the products deliver value tomorrow. The companies that figure that out will come out stronger on the other side of this blizzard. For now, we're all watching and learning. Market cycles come and go, but building products people need and love? That's what lasts.