Salesforce to Buy Cresta for Reported $2.7B

Salesforce Inc. has agreed to buy Cresta Intelligence Inc. for a reported $2.7 billion. The cloud giant announced the deal late Monday without disclosing financial terms, though The Information reported the $2.7 billion figure.

Acquisition Context

The transaction marks Salesforce's second multibillion-dollar purchase in the customer service market this year. It previously agreed to acquire Fin Inc., formerly Intercom Inc., for $3.6 billion. Salesforce also signed a $5.66 billion deal to buy Braze Inc. last month. Both the Braze and Cresta acquisitions are expected to close in the company's 2028 fiscal year, which starts next February. Cresta is a venture-backed provider of customer service software that uses artificial intelligence to handle customer inquiries.

Platform Features

Cresta's platform performs tasks such as scheduling doctor's appointments and personalizes responses based on customer preferences and past interactions. Organizations can build customized AI voice agents for specific support categories, such as processing device returns at an electronics retailer. The system allows adjustments to the underlying AI model and regulatory compliance settings. Complex requests can be split into smaller tasks handled by separate agents, including one that interprets tickets, another that locates help desk articles, and a third that scans for troubleshooting advice. This ensemble approach supports parallel processing and faster responses.

Cresta includes an agent named Deputy designed for complex tickets that involve multiple employees. Deputy gathers required information, engages relevant workers, and manages follow-up actions such as sending reminders. A separate agent offers real-time guidance to human representatives, including identification of upselling opportunities and retrieval of data from external systems. Additional tools include Opera, which fine-tunes AI models for customer service scenarios, and Synthetic Customers, which generates AI-based support conversations for testing new agents.

What it means for revenue teams

Revenue operations and sales operations teams may see changes in how customer service data integrates with broader Salesforce platforms once the deal closes. Support automation features that identify upselling opportunities during conversations could influence pipeline management and forecasting processes. Teams responsible for attribution and demand generation may gain new sources of conversation intelligence that connect service interactions to revenue outcomes.