Salesforce has announced the completed acquisition of global data management platform Informatica in an $8 billion (£6bn) deal that will boost the CRM giant’s agentic AI plans.

Under the terms of the agreement, first disclosed in May, stockholders will receive $25 in cash per share, a price which could result in more than $2 billion (£1.52bn) each for the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Permira Advisors, which hold more than 60% of Informatica stock between them. 

For Salesforce, the buyout will reinforce its Agentforce 360 platform by subsuming Informatica’s data catalogue, metadata management, and Master Data Management (MDM) services, which the firm said will go towards ensuring data from across organisations is unified, trusted, and actionable.

Working in tandem with the MuleSoft platform, which was acquired back in 2018, Salesforce plans to tap Informatica’s data integration and governance tools to streamline enterprise access to data and systems, laying the groundwork for more AI-driven operations.

This will provide the “critical data foundation” the firm needs for its AI agents, with Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff saying that “clean, connected, trusted data” is the fuel of the Agentforce platform.

“Informatica is the trusted platform that turns fragmented enterprise data into context, so every agent can reason, act, and deliver outcomes with precision,” added Benioff. “When companies get their data right, they get their AI right, and Agentforce becomes unstoppable.” 

Benioff is also hoping that the Informatica deal will sharpen Salesforce’s metadata edge by providing enterprise-wide context across systems, hopefully delivering more accurate, explainable, and trusted AI responses for its customers.

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Under the Salesforce umbrella, Informatica will continue to work with organisations to manage and unify their data with an eye to AI readiness, while its new owner will look to rapidly integrate Informatica’s technology stack, including data integration, quality, governance, and unified metadata for Agentforce, as well as developing a single data pipeline for MDM on Data 360.

With its acquisition of Informatica, Salesforce has once again expanded the reach of its behind-the-scenes ecosystem, and tightened its grip on the data flows that fuel modern AI.

“With Informatica, we will deliver a governed and complete data platform that powers more intelligent, contextual, and autonomous experiences across Agentforce 360 – the trusted system connecting humans and AI agents in the enterprise,” said Steve Fisher, Salesforce president.