Salesforce has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire AI-powered cloud data management Informatica for $8 billion. The move will boost Salesforce’s presence in the enterprise space, combining two large, established software firms. Salesforce says the move will enhance its ability to deliver agentic AI via “Informatica’s rich data catalog, data integration, governance, quality and privacy, metadata management, and Master Data Management (MDM) services.” Informatica will help the Salesforce platform establish “a unified architecture for agentic AI — enabling AI agents to operate safely, responsibly, and at scale across the modern enterprise,” according to Salesforce.

The Wall Street Journal reports the acquisition will bolster Salesforce’s overall AI capabilities and buy it time in the AI race, adding that it is getting the company at a bargain rate of roughly “27 percent below the market value that Informatica was trading at a little over a year ago, when The Wall Street Journal first reported deal talks between the two.”

Each of the two companies has seen growth rates slow considerably since then. WSJ suggests that may have prompted their return to the negotiating table.

“Informatica was founded in 1993 as an enterprise data-focused vendor and an early pioneer in the ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) market,” writes VentureBeat, noting that the company has evolved, “moving to cloud and SaaS and more recently embracing generative AI.”

At last week’s Informatica World, the company announced new agentic AI offerings aimed at improving enterprise data management and operations. These included Claire GPT and Claire Copilot.

“The acquisition markedly elevates Salesforce’s position across all critical dimensions of modern data management,” Forrester analyst Noel Yuhanna told VentureBeat.

“Together, Salesforce and Informatica will create the most complete, agent-ready data platform in the industry,” Salesforce chairman and CEO Marc Benioff said of the union. “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.”

By getting an agreement in place, Salesforce beat out other Informatica suitors, including Cloud Software and Thoma Bravo, according to WSJ.

Related:
Salesforce Says AI Has Reduced Hiring of Engineers and Customer Service Workers, Bloomberg, 5/28/25