A CRM is an essential piece of software for any customer service and experience team.
In a nutshell, they help businesses manage and analyze customer interactions and data throughout the customer lifecycle.
With the explosion of AI in recent times, the technology has advanced to new heights. But these new capabilities also come with their own set of challenges.
The Forrester Wave for CRM Software 2025 is a report that analyzes and assesses 12 of the “top” CRM vendors in the space, with each platform being ranked as either a Leader, Strong Performer, or Contender.
So, without further ado, let's take a look at how they performed.
Ranking the Vendors
These are Forrester’s top five vendors based on performance across the two evaluation areas:
Current Offering
- Oracle: 4.10/5
- Salesforce: 4.04/5
- Pegasystems: 3.94/5
- Microsoft: 3.68/5
- SAP: 2.86/5
Strategy
- Microsoft: 4.26/5
- Salesforce: 4.26/5
- Creatio: 3.80/5
- Pegasystems: 3.76/5
- Oracle: 3.70/5
In addition to the scores, Forrester offers an overview of each vendor’s portfolio and solutions.
Here’s a summary of each:
Salesforce (Leader)
With a strong performance in both Current Offering and Strategy, Salesforce leads the way in this year’s Forrester Wave.
The vendor’s Winter ‘25 release was praised for its “aggressive vision for CRM,” which includes delivering robust enterprise-grade capabilities across the customer journey, enhanced by 50+ AI-driven insights and predictive/GenAI features.
Salesforce’s Agentforce platform also received praise, with Forrester highlighting the ability of its AI agents to support CRM tasks like customer service, sales prospecting, and coaching, with LLM recommendations tailored to use cases.
Microsoft (Leader)
Microsoft led the way in Strategy, with its focus on GenAI, partnerships, adoption strategies, and success frameworks helping to drive 24 percent year-over-year growth.
The vendor’s 365 suite of solutions helps to provide users with a unified CRM offering that integrates Marketing, Sales, and Service into a unified platform, enhances CX through AI-driven personalization, and leverages Copilot to improve productivity.
Customers praised Microsoft's low-code capabilities and FastTrack program for adding significant value during implementation.
Oracle (Leader)
Next on the list is Oracle. The vendor’s CX Fusion Service and Sales platforms are guided by the company’s desire to boost revenue via a strategy of helping businesses win customers, retain their satisfaction, and attract similar prospects.
Forrester describes Oracle’s CRM offering as “optimized for generating revenue from existing customers,” with the Account 360 feature capable of leveraging enterprise-wide and journey data to identify renewal and expansion opportunities.
Oracle also drew praise for its asset-based service, which uses AI to integrate customer and asset data for optimized uptime and proactive service planning.
In addition, the report outlined the vendor’s plans to introduce AI agents for service resolutions.
Pegasystems (Leader)
The last Leader on the list is Pegasystems, whose Pega Infinity 24.2 platform impressed Forrester, with its “process-centric” design making it ideally suited for large enterprises and companies focused on maximizing customer value.
The platform boasts “robust” self-service capabilities, a sophisticated customer roadmap that leverages AI and LLMs, and the implementation of GenAI throughout the entire CRM.
Customers appreciate Pegasystems' flexibility in creating tailored customer journeys, with its AI and automation streamlining onboarding, compliance, and value-driven tasks.
Creatio (Strong Performer)
With a particularly strong performance in Strategy, the report complimented Creatio for its roadmap that focuses on AI-driven CRM agents, scalable AI operationalization, and industry-specific workflows.
The “easy-to-use" Creatio CRM 8.2 platform also features support for a varied selection of LLMs, subscription-friendly renewal management processes, and a reputation for going “above and beyond” for its customers.
However, the vendor falls short on not providing customers with more specific guidance on beginning their AI journeys.