Salesforce Buys Braze for $5.66 Billion to Power Real-Time Marketing AI

Salesforce will pay $5.66 billion in cash to acquire Braze, betting that real-time, AI-driven customer engagement becomes table stakes for retail marketing. The definitive agreement, announced Oct. 20, gives Braze shareholders $47.50 per share — a roughly 58% premium over the Oct. 19 closing price.

The deal is Salesforce's latest move to expand its AI portfolio through acquisition. It follows a $3.6 billion purchase of Fin, an AI customer service agent developer, completed in September. The same month, Salesforce bought content platform Contentful for roughly $1.5 billion. It has also agreed to acquire Listen Labs, which uses AI agents for customer research; terms were not disclosed.

What does Salesforce get from Braze?

New York-based Braze runs personalized marketing across mobile apps, websites, email and other digital channels. Its platform uses real-time customer data and AI to optimize message, timing and channel for every interaction.

The scale is substantial. Braze serves roughly 2,770 customers, including Urban Outfitters (No. 29 in the Digital Commerce 360 Top 2000), Instacart and Canva.

Braze co-founder and CTO Jon Hyman said in an Oct. 20 LinkedIn post that the platform engages 9 billion monthly active users across its customer base. In 2025, it handled "about 4.5 trillion messages and other actions to consumers," he wrote.

"Braze was built to turn live customer behavior into personalized engagement at scale," said Patrick Stokes, president of applications and marketing at Salesforce, in the acquisition announcement. "Bringing that capability together with Salesforce Marketing Cloud, CRM and Data 360 will deliver that wow moment in every customer interaction."

A centerpiece is BrazeAI, which combines predictive, generative and agentic AI. According to Braze, the tools anticipate customer behavior, generate marketing content and optimize when, where and how brands reach shoppers.

How will the integration work?

Salesforce plans to connect Braze with Customer 360, its suite of customer data and applications spanning sales, marketing, commerce and service. The combination is expected to strengthen Marketing Cloud, which businesses use to manage campaigns.

The acquisition gives Salesforce "a real-time engagement layer that its marketing business has historically lacked," Shay Boloor, chief market strategist at Futurum Equities, told Reuters.

With access to Salesforce's customer data, Braze's technology could help marketers "adapt engagement as customers browse, buy, and use products," according to the acquisition announcement. Salesforce also expects BrazeAI to work alongside Agentforce, its platform for deploying AI agents that make decisions and execute tasks, better coordinating marketing with ecommerce, sales and service.

Braze CEO and co-founder Bill Magnuson said Salesforce's technology, reach and partner network would help his company "bring more of our vision to market sooner." In an Oct. 20 LinkedIn post, Magnuson confirmed he will remain CEO and the company will continue operating as Braze.

The transaction is expected to close during Salesforce's fiscal 2028, which runs from Feb. 1, 2027, through Jan. 31, 2028. It remains subject to shareholder and regulatory approvals. Salesforce said it does not expect the deal to affect fiscal 2027 guidance.

How are retailers already using Braze?

Two Top 2000 retailers show the technology's measurable impact:

• Grove Collaborative (No. 256) switched to Braze after its previous platform crashed on Thanksgiving Eve and could not support real-time personalization. A campaign of automated reminders and product suggestions for non-buying browsers, integrated with its Shopify storefront, generated a 10% checkout rate, a 41% add-to-cart rate and a 3% click-through rate, according to a Braze case study.
• E.l.f. Beauty (No. 328) partnered with Braze and Stitch to expand mobile marketing for its Beauty Squad loyalty program. Monthly app usage rose 125% between March and September 2023. Loyalty offer redemptions climbed 58% year over year in 2024.

Why the deal matters for retail ecommerce

Salesforce's existing footprint among large retailers is deep. In North America, 78 of the Top 2000 online retailers use Salesforce as their ecommerce platform, according to Digital Commerce 360 data. Together they generated more than $192.60 billion in web sales in 2025.

The AI business it will plug Braze into is growing fast. In its fiscal second quarter, Agentforce annual recurring revenue surpassed $1.5 billion, up 240% year over year. Combined with Data 360, ARR reached $3.9 billion, per company earnings results.

If regulators and shareholders approve, roughly 2,770 Braze customers will join a Salesforce marketing stack already running the ecommerce operations of billions in retail web sales — a combination positioned to make real-time, AI-personalized engagement the default for large retail brands.