Salesforce reinforces its AI cloud with $8B Informatica acquisition
Salesforce agreed to purchase Informatica for approximately $8 billion Tuesday in a move designed to strengthen its cloud-based data and AI capabilities. 'Together, Salesforce and Informatica will create the most complete, agent-ready data platform in the industry,' Salesforce Chair and CEO Marc Benioff said in the announcement.
The CRM provider will integrate Informatica's data governance and management services with its Data Cloud warehouse, MuleSoft hybrid interface and Tableau analytics platforms to build out its Agentforce enterprise AI automation hub, the company said.
'This proposed acquisition will be a key enabler for Salesforce's next phase of AI-driven growth — and we will move quickly to integrate their capabilities and unlock synergies on a fast timeline,' said Robin Washington, president and chief operating and financial officer at Salesforce. The transaction has approval from both companies' boards and is expected to close early in Salesforce's fiscal year 2027, which begins in February.
As the agent deployment race heats up, major enterprise software providers are reinforcing their data foundations to provide autonomous AI tools with fuel for insights and action. The Informatica acquisition follows a flurry of agentic-related moves in the industry.
SAP forged a data pipeline alliance with Databricks in February to amplify its Joule copilot's agentic capabilities. The enterprise software giant's Business Data Cloud platform connects ERP data with outside data repositories to put additional muscle behind machine learning, AI and agentic applications.
In January, ServiceNow rolled out its AI Agent Orchestrator command center and promised to deliver thousands of pre-built agentic tools to its platform. The enterprise software company added the agent-focused Workflow Data Network multiplatform integration to its suite and purchased data governance and management start-up Data.world for an undisclosed sum in early May.
'ServiceNow is working with some of the largest companies in the world to eliminate data silos head‑on, enabling enterprises to accelerate AI adoption at scale,' said Gaurav Rewari, SVP and general manager of data and analytics products at ServiceNow, in the May announcement.
Salesforce has already seen returns on its investements in agentic capabilities. After reporting 120% year-over-year revenue growth for its Data Cloud and AI segment, Benioff dubbed the three-month period ending on Jan. 31 as 'the quarter of Agentforce' during a February earnings call.
Earlier this month, the company expanded its army of agent-focused AI models and added automation software startup Convergence.ai to its growing M&A portfolio.
While the terms of the Convergence.ai deal were undisclosed, Salesforce is no stranger to multibillion-dollar acquisitions. The Informatica deal is dwarfed by two prior Salesforce acquisitions — nearly $28 billion for Slack in 2020 and almost $16 billion for Tableau in 2019. The company purchased MuleSoft for $6.5 billion in 2018.
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