• by Laurie Sullivan , 5 hours ago

Salesforce announced an agreement to acquire customer-engagement platform Braze on Tuesday for about $5.66 billion, including debt.

The acquisition bridges a gap for marketers. 

Salesforce's core Marketing Cloud, built on the 2013 acquisition of ExactTarget, was designed around campaigns measured in hours and days, using a batch processing system rather than triggered instantly, but Braze's technology changes that.

The combined system will enable marketers to run instant, behavior-triggered experiences rather than having to wait hours or days to process data. The brand will adapt its interaction with customers in the exact millisecond they take action.

BMO Capital Markets highlighted in a report that while Braze's product fills a critical gap by providing Salesforce with a modern, real-time B2C layer where humans interact, the financial cost puts pressure on Salesforce to integrate the technology from the two companies rather than leave them as silos.

"While the products overlap in certain areas, Braze adds stronger capabilities in real time and mobile customer engagement," Keith Bachman, analyst at BMO Capital Markets, wrote a report, according to Investor's Business Daily.

"Salesforce's Marketing & Commerce cloud revenue has declined for the past three quarters, although management commented that there were some green shoots in marketing on the most recent earnings call," Bachman wrote.

Under the terms of the agreement announced Tuesday, Braze shareholders will receive $47.50 in cash for each common stock owned, the companies said.

Following the announcement of the acquisition on Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2026, stocks for both companies closed higher.

Salesforce (CRM) closed at $242.44 per share -- rising 2.84% during the day's trading session -- whereas Braze (BRZE) rose 51.7% on the acquisition news, closing at $45.57 per share.

Braze’s platform supports real-time engagement through artificial intelligence (AI) to help marketers optimize content, offers, media channels and timing.

In September, ahead of Braze’s annual customer conference, Braze founder and CEO Bill Magnuson previewed new products that moved agentic AI from generating content into forging and executing customer engagement.

A company spokesperson described the technology as systems that can make one-to-one decisioning accessible beyond the largest and most technical marketing teams, while still operating within compliance standards that the brand maintains.

Braze serves about 2,770 customers. Canva, Instacart and Venmo are among them. 

The deal is the latest by Salesforce that is intended to accelerate its AI investments and diminish concerns across its investor groups that a rapid adoption of the technology could erode demand for traditional software.