Salesforce, a leader in CRM applications, has announced its intent to acquire Informatica — a global leader in enterprise data management — for approximately $8 billion. Informatica fuels Salesforce’s hard pivot to reinvent itself as an AI-first company and away from its CRM roots. Informatica also strengthens Salesforce’s data foundation, a critical requirement for scaling Agentforce, Salesforce’s agentic AI capabilities, which have experienced slower-than-expected market traction since their release.

Informatica + Salesforce = Faster AI Transition

Realizing the full promise of AI requires a tightly integrated approach to data and intelligence. Informatica enhances Salesforce’s strong architecture by adding deep expertise in data fabric, integration, data pipeline, governance, quality, and master data management in combination with Salesforce’s Data Cloud, MuleSoft, and Tableau. Benefits include:

  • A complete data management suite. Informatica fills a gap in Salesforce’s data management capabilities, enhancing Salesforce’s position across all core pillars of modern data management, including cloud-native data integration, ingestion, pipelines, master data management (MDM), metadata management, transformation, preparation, quality, and governance.
  • Expanded customer data fabric for end-to-end AI and analytics. This acquisition significantly advances Salesforce’s vision of a unified customer data fabric. With real-time data integration from a vast array of sources — structured and unstructured, internal and external — Salesforce is now positioned to deliver a truly end-to-end customer data fabric for AI and analytics. This capability is essential to driving hyperpersonalized, high-impact customer engagement at scale.
  • Support for real-time, cross-cloud data capabilities at scale. Informatica’s robust support for real-time, cross-cloud data access and analytics empowers businesses to derive insights from both Salesforce and non-Salesforce data sources across cloud, hybrid, and on-premises environments.
  • A data foundation for agentic AI. Informatica’s advanced capabilities in data integration, metadata cataloging, governance, data quality, and MDM are essential to power intelligent agents that can autonomously interpret and act on enterprise data. By combining Informatica with Salesforce’s Data Cloud, MuleSoft, and Tableau, the unified platform becomes fully agent-ready.
  • Enhanced AI governance for responsible innovation. Informatica is at the forefront of developing advanced AI governance frameworks, building on its strong foundation in MDM and data governance. Its capabilities extend beyond preparing data for AI — introducing tools to govern AI systems with a focus on ethical practices, transparency, and accountability. By leveraging Informatica’s expertise, Salesforce is positioned to deliver agentic AI solutions that customers on both sides can deploy confidently and responsibly at scale.

A Win-Win For All Customers

The acquisition of Informatica by Salesforce delivers transformative value for customers of both companies, accelerating the journey toward intelligent, data-driven enterprises.

  • For Salesforce customers, the acquisition marks a game-changing leap forward. They will now be able to seamlessly access and unify customer data from across Salesforce and third-party systems — in real time. This breakthrough enables the creation of a truly unified customer data fabric, empowering businesses with actionable insights across every channel and touchpoint. Most importantly, it supercharges Salesforce’s ability to deliver agentic AI: low-code, low-maintenance AI solutions that reduce complexity, accelerate deployment, and scale impact. With a fully integrated data management backbone, Salesforce customers can expect faster innovation cycles, deeper personalization, and smarter customer engagement at enterprise scale.
  • For Informatica customers, the opportunity is equally compelling, as they gain accelerated access to next-generation AI capabilities underpinned by the power and scale of Salesforce’s platform. As the industry moves toward agentic AI, intelligent agents will automate core data operations — from ingestion and integration to pipeline orchestration and governance. What once required days or weeks of manual effort will now be handled autonomously, enabling faster time to insight and greater business agility. With a unified data, AI, and analytics stack, Informatica customers will unlock faster innovation, stronger competitive advantage, and greater return on their data assets.

Despite the promise of this combination, effective execution remains an open question. Salesforce will have to work through overlapping capabilities with MuleSoft, integrate Informatica’s products and teams within Salesforce, and preserve relationships with Informatica customers who are not using Salesforce.

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