Salesforce Inc. on Tuesday said it has agreed to acquire Informatica Inc., a cloud data management company, for $8 billion — the latest aggressive move by the enterprise software titan to burnish its artificial intelligence (AI) credentials.
Under the deal, Informatica shareholders will receive $25 per share, a premium of about 11% from Friday’s closing price of $22.55 per share.
The acquisition, expected to close this year, is expected to boost Salesforce’s ambitious agentic AI efforts through Informatica’s rich data catalog and data integration, according to the companies. Salesforce is a key proponent of what it calls a futuristic digital workforce. Just over a year ago, Salesforce reportedly eyed buying Informatica, but talks fizzled and Informatica later issued a statement denying any sale discussions.
“Together, Salesforce and Informatica will create the most complete, agent-ready data platform in the industry,” Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said in a statement announcing the deal. “By uniting the power of Data Cloud, MuleSoft, and Tableau with Informatica’s industry-leading, advanced data management capabilities, we will enable autonomous agents to deliver smarter, safer, and more scalable outcomes for every company, and significantly strengthen our position in the $150 billion-plus enterprise data market.”
“Joining forces with Salesforce represents a significant leap forward in our journey to bring data and AI to life by empowering businesses with the transformative power of their most critical asset — their data,” Informatica CEO Amit Walia added. “We have a shared vision for how we can help organizations harness the full value of their data in the AI era.”
The purchase of Informatica, which laid out its strategy for AI agents at a conference in Las Vegas in May, adds to a stable of multibillion-dollar acquisitions by Salesforce in recent years. It has relentlessly expanded its product portfolio by snapping up Slack ($27.7 billion in 2021), Tableau ($15.7 billion in 2019), and MuleSoft ($6.5 billion in 2018). Earlier this month, Salesforce said it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Convergence.ai, an AI agent company behind advanced systems that perform complex, human-like tasks in digital environments, for an undisclosed sum.
With AI models commoditized, the focus has shifted to integrations that connect enterprise data to those models, say industry observers. “The AI era is reshaping enterprise priorities,” Saket Saurabh, CEO and co-founder of Nexla, said in an email.
Added Josh Rogers, CEO of Precisely: “AI is only as accurate as the data that drives it. Salesforce’s interest in Informatica reflects the growing recognition that data integrity is essential to scale AI and drive meaningful business results. This is especially true for agentic AI, where autonomous agents will eventually be capable of making impactful decisions that yield high-value results and free up employees to focus on more strategic, complex work.”
“Salesforce has a long track record of pulling customers deeper into its tightly controlled ecosystem, where bundling is the norm, licensing is rigid, and integration with non-Salesforce systems becomes increasingly painful,” Qlik CEO Mike Capone said in an email. “If you’re not all-in on Salesforce, you’re now on the outside of a very expensive walled garden. Instead of the flexibility they need, customers should brace for surprise costs and a roadmap designed to serve Salesforce-first use cases.”
Informatica, based in Silicon Valley, was taken private in 2015 by private equity firm Permira and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board for about $5.3 billion. It went public again in 2021.
“Salesforce has been a top-down vendor for years, providing great business software products built on top of whatever technology was necessary to drive those specific business workloads. Now, with this acquisition, they’re literally flipping the script and building from the bottom up,” Brad Shimmin, vice president of practice lead for data management and analytics at the Futurum Group, said in an message. “Why is that important? Well, as Salesforce found out in building Salesforce Data Cloud, providing customers with the tools necessary to ingest, process, analyze, and manage data across the entire enterprise (not just within the confines of Salesforce) demands attention be paid to the basics of data integration, data quality, et al…areas of interest that have long powered Informatica.
“But as with all such acquisitions, the burden of integrating Informatica will likely rest heavy on Salesforce’s shoulders, not just in terms of basic integration block and tackling but also in how the vendor carries forward Informatica’s existing business and the expectations of Informatica’s customers,” Shimmin continued. “They did a pretty good job of this with Tableau, honestly. But I worry a bit with Informatica, because the company has long positioned itself as a neutral, platform-agnostic data management provider.”
“With all eyes on the [Salesforce] AI strategy buildout and increased need for enterprises properly manage data across multiple systems for powering AI, [Salesforce] and [Informatica] joining forces would create greater capabilities for [Salesforce] but will also open up the door to cross-sell opportunities across both install bases,” Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives said in a note to investors on Tuesday.
Institutions need ways to adopt AI that are as accountable and explainable as they are powerful, said Kevin Green, chief marketing officer of Hapax.
“Moves like this acquisition from Salesforce show the market is shifting toward platforms that don’t just house data, but activate it safely and strategically,” Green said in an email. “We’re seeing a shift away from isolated pilots and towards deeply integrated, organization-wide AI strategies, which is a vital step in order to fully utilize AI. The platforms that win will be the ones that embed AI into core workflows without turning it into a black box.”
