(Bloomberg) — Salesforce Inc. issued fiscal year profit guidance that beat analysts’ estimates, seeking to appease investors concerned about slowing revenue growth at the software giant.

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Earnings will be between $10.03 and $10.11 per share for the fiscal year ending in January, compared with an earlier forecast of up to $9.94. Analysts on average had expected $9.91. The company reiterated its fiscal year revenue forecast of $37.7 billion to $38 billion.

Salesforce, the leading maker of customer management software, has turned its attention to growing profits in 2023 after battling with several activist investors. Recently, investors have been concerned about slowing growth and waiting to see when new initiatives, such as artificial intelligence features, could boost revenue.

“We continue to deliver disciplined, profitable growth and operating margins reached record highs this quarter,” Chief Financial Officer Amy Weaver said in the statement.

Salesforce slightly raised its annual adjusted operating margin forecast to 32.8%, compared to a previous forecast of 32.5%.

Shares rose about 3.5 percent in extended trading after closing at $258.90 in New York. The stock has fallen 1.6 percent this year.

Many large software manufacturers are struggling to generate new revenue with AI products. At Salesforce, new higher-priced product variants with AI are slowly contributing to higher revenue, but this contribution is still “fairly early,” said investor relations chief Mike Spencer in an interview.

Data Cloud, a product for organizing information from the company’s business applications and other sources for analytics, has been touted by management as a way to meet demand for AI capabilities. Still, analysts are increasingly skeptical that the service is gaining traction with customers. Spencer said Data Cloud had “good momentum” in the quarter.

Revenue in the fiscal second quarter rose 8% to $9.33 billion, the company said in a statement Wednesday. It was the first single-digit revenue growth Salesforce has recorded in its 20-year history as a public company. Analysts on average had forecast $9.23 billion.

Earnings, excluding certain items, were $2.56 per share, compared with an average estimate of $2.35.

The results showed signs of stabilization and slight improvement, which is a good sign in a difficult software buying environment, said Anurag Rana, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence. “There is more pressure on traditional software companies right now because customers are putting a much larger share of their funds into buying GPUs,” he said, referring to graphics processing units, the chips that power AI.

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Salesforce also announced that Weaver is stepping down from her post. She will remain CFO until a successor is named and will then serve as an advisor, the company said.

(Updated with comments from the head investor starting in the seventh paragraph.)

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