MW Why Salesforce plans to buy Informatica in an $8 billion AI deal

By Emily Bary

The software giant faces 'growing pressure to increase adoption of Agentforce,' its agentic AI offering, according to an analyst. Informatica's data-management platform could help.

Salesforce Inc. was rumored to be interested in purchasing Informatica Inc. a year ago. Now it's pulling the trigger on a deal for the cloud-oriented data-management company.

The companies are billing the planned combination as a play on artificial intelligence - and specifically agentic AI, which is when AI can execute tasks for humans while making its own judgment calls.

"The combination of Informatica's rich data catalog, data integration, governance, quality and privacy, metadata management, and Master Data Management (MDM) services with the Salesforce platform will establish a unified architecture for agentic AI," the companies said in a press release on Tuesday.

The deal has an equity value of roughly $8 billion. Informatica (INFA) shareholders are due to receive $25 in cash per share owned upon completion of the transaction. The companies expect the deal to close "early in Salesforce's fiscal year 2027."

Salesforce shares $(CRM)$ fell 3.6% on Friday after the deal was reported to be in the works, though the shares are up 1.1% in Tuesday's premarket action. Informatica shares, which climbed 17% on Friday, are up another 5%-plus premarket Tuesday and indicating just south of $24.

In a late Monday note prior to the official announcement, Guggenheim analyst John DiFucci called Informatica "the leader in data management." Salesforce, meanwhile, would theoretically get to "own more of the data stack across operational data, data integration and business intelligence," DiFucci continued.

Jefferies analyst Brent Thill noted that Salesforce is making a bigger push around agentic AI and its Agentforce product than it was last time the deal seemingly was on the table.

"There's now a stronger emphasis on connecting data that sits in different silos within the org so that customers can take advantage of Agentforce," he wrote. The company "is facing growing pressure to increase adoption of Agentforce."

Salesforce is known to make transactions, but Mizuho desk-based analyst Jordan Klein said that the company and mergers "do not match up very well as investors have bad memories of deals where valuation or strategic need have been questioned."

When he talks with investors, they seem to "like the idea of no M&A and [a] focus on [the core business] with higher margins and strong and steady execution," he noted. "But this is a small enough deal in my view and fits into their highest growth data-cloud segment such that investors will get past the initial blow back quickly."

-Emily Bary

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May 27, 2025 08:39 ET (12:39 GMT)

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