Salesforce plans to acquire Braze for $5.66 billion, making an artificial intelligence (AI) play for technology to help brands respond to shopper behavior in real time.

Under the definitive agreement announced Oct. 20, Braze shareholders would receive $47.50 per share in cash. That represents a roughly 58% premium over the stock’s Oct. 19 closing price.

Salesforce expects the acquisition to strengthen its Marketing Cloud business and broader AI offerings.

“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.”

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

In North America, 78 of the Top 2000 online retailers use Salesforce as their ecommerce platform, according to Digital Commerce 360 data. Together, those retailers generated more than $192.60 billion in web sales in 2025. The Top 2000 is Digital Commerce 360’s database ranking North America’s largest online retailers by annual ecommerce sales.

What Salesforce gains from Braze’s AI capabilities

New York-based Braze specializes in personalized marketing across mobile apps, websites, email and other digital channels. Using real-time customer data and AI, its platform helps brands optimize the message, timing and channel for customer interactions.

Braze would bring considerable scale to Salesforce’s marketing business. Its platform serves roughly 2,770 customers, including Urban Outfitters, Instacart and Canva. Urban Outfitters is No. 29 in the Top 2000.

In a LinkedIn post on Oct. 20, Braze co-founder and chief technology officer Jon Hyman shared that the platform engages 9 billion monthly active users across its customer base. In 2025, Braze also handled “about 4.5 trillion messages and other actions to consumers,” he wrote.

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

How Salesforce plans to integrate Braze

For Salesforce, Braze could fill a gap in its existing marketing business.

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

Salesforce plans to connect Braze’s real-time marketing technology with Customer 360, its suite of customer data and applications spanning sales, marketing, commerce and service. The ecommerce platform and software provider expects the combination to strengthen Marketing Cloud, which businesses use to manage marketing campaigns.

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 Braze’s AI capabilities to work alongside Agentforce, its platform for deploying AI agents that can make decisions and carry out tasks. The combination could help businesses better coordinate marketing with ecommerce, sales and customer service, Salesforce said.

Meanwhile, Braze CEO and co-founder Bill Magnuson said Salesforce’s technology, reach and partner network would help the company “bring more of our vision to market sooner.”

In an Oct. 20 LinkedIn post, Magnuson also said he would remain CEO and that the company would continue operating as Braze.

How retailers are using Braze to drive sales

Some retailers are already reporting higher engagement and conversion rates from campaigns using Braze’s technology.

Grove Collaborative, a sustainability-focused online retailer, switched to Braze after its previous marketing platform couldn’t support real-time personalization. The system had also crashed on Thanksgiving Eve, according to a Braze case study.

Integrating Braze with its Shopify storefront allowed Grove to automate personalized reminders and product suggestions for shoppers who browsed without buying. The resulting campaign generated a 10% checkout rate, a 41% add-to-cart rate and a 3% click-through rate, according to Braze.

E.l.f. Beauty Inc. offers another example. The beauty retailer partnered with Braze and Stitch to expand its mobile marketing efforts and boost engagement with its loyalty program, Beauty Squad.

With help from the two companies, e.l.f. expanded its use of push notifications and personalized in-app campaigns to encourage customers to return to its mobile app. Between March and September 2023, monthly mobile app usage increased 125%, according to a separate Braze case study.

The retailer also added push notifications to its existing loyalty emails, reminding Beauty Squad members to redeem rewards before they expired. Those efforts, alongside other support from Braze, contributed to a 58% year-over-year increase in loyalty offer redemptions in 2024, according to the study.

Grove ranks No. 256 in the Top 2000, while e.l.f. Beauty ranks No. 328.

Salesforce expands AI capabilities through acquisitions

The Braze deal is part of Salesforce’s push to expand its AI offerings through in-house development and acquisitions.

That strategy comes as Salesforce’s existing AI business gains traction. In its fiscal second quarter, Agentforce annual recurring revenue surpassed $1.5 billion, up 240% year over year. Combined with Data 360, annual recurring revenue reached $3.9 billion, according to the company’s earnings results.

Meanwhile, the company has made several other sizable acquisitions this year. In September, it completed its $3.6 billion deal to acquire Fin, which develops AI agents for handling customer service inquiries.

That same month, it acquired Contentful for roughly $1.5 billion to support more personalized customer experiences.

More recently, Salesforce announced an agreement to acquire Listen Labs, which uses AI agents to conduct customer research and analyze feedback. Financial terms were not disclosed.

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