‘A bold and highly strategic move’: Why Salesforce’s Informatica acquisition could be the key to Benioff’s agentic AI dream
Salesforce’s acquisition of Informatica could be a game changer for the company’s agentic AI ambitions, according to industry analysts, but questions still remain over how it will fit under the CRM giant’s umbrella.
The $8 billion deal, announced earlier this week, will create the “most complete, agent-read data platform in the industry”, according to Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff.
By bringing it into the fold at the second time of asking, Salesforce will be combining the extensive data management expertise Informatica has to offer with its Agentforce and Data Cloud services.
Agentforce was unveiled by the company last year at its annual Dreamforce conference in San Francisco, and gives users access to a range of autonomous AI agents which can carry out tasks in place of humans.
Agentic AI has quickly become the big buzz word in the industry, with all the big players capitalizing on this trend. Agents require a vast pool of high-quality data to function correctly, however, and crucially, this data has to be relevant to the particular use-cases and domains in which enterprise users operate.
Informatica helps solve this problem for Salesforce by essentially providing a more robust data foundation from which agentic AI solutions can be deployed. The company boasts a “rich data catalog”, according to CEO Amit Walia, while similarly offering new governance and data management capabilities.
Forrester VP principal analyst Noel Yuhanna said integrating these aspects of the Informatica portfolio shows why the deal is a “bold and highly strategic move” by Salesforce, addressing a critical gap in its own data management tools.
“The acquisition markedly elevates Salesforce’s position across all critical dimensions of modern data management, including data integration, ingestion, pipelines, master data management (MDM), metadata management, transformation, preparation, quality, and governance in the cloud,” Yuhanna said.
“These capabilities are no longer optional — they are foundational for building an AI-ready enterprise, especially as the industry accelerates toward agentic AI.”
Yuhanna added that the current agentic AI craze has created an impetus for enterprises to more tightly integrate data and AI. They’re “two sides of the same coin” now, and it’s a balancing act that can’t be ignored.
“This acquisition strengthens Salesforce’s ability to do just that, laying the groundwork for next-generation data that can power intelligent, autonomous, and personalized experiences at scale to support AI use cases,” he said.
“Crucially, this positions Salesforce to deliver a unified customer data fabric, enabling a truly end-to-end platform for data, AI, and analytics, tailored to customer-centric use cases. Real-time data integration across diverse sources is becoming critical for advanced customer engagement, and this move brings Salesforce much closer to that vision.”
Salesforce needs to nail the Informatica integration
The acquisition does raise questions about exactly where Informatica fits within the broader Salesforce ecosystem. Informatica provides data management and integration tools and operates in roughly the same domain as MuleSoft, which the company acquired for an estimated $6.5 billion in 2018.
While the two companies will complement each other post-acquisition, Gaurav Dhillon, CEO of SnapLogic and co-founder of Informatica, suggested this could create an overlap that will pose challenges for customers.
“I have at best, a mixed feeling about this. On the one hand, I understand why it might be happening and it makes sense in theory. It is a crystal clear ‘I-told-you-so’ moment for me and why I founded SnapLogic, because most enterprises are going to need one platform, for application and data integration,” he said.
“But on the other hand, it will likely create massive turmoil for Informatica (and MuleSoft) customers.
“That turmoil is inevitable when two legacy integration platforms like MuleSoft and Informatica have to be squeezed down to one; to truly get a grip on important business data about customers, suppliers and markets.”
Dhillon noted that this integration could be a “slow, painful process” that takes years, even if all goes to plan.
“This challenge is compounded because you can’t go backwards in time to pre-cloud and pre-GenAI technology.”
Yuhanna echoed Dhillon’s comments with regard to integration challenges, noting that timely execution will be vital to avoid disruption for customers.
“The ultimate success of this acquisition will depend on how quickly and seamlessly Salesforce can integrate Informatica’s capabilities into its broader data ecosystem,” he said. “The strategic rationale is clear, but execution will be the decisive factor.”
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