Salesforce to Buy Braze for 5.66 Billion Dollars, Paying a 58 Percent Premium for Real-Time AI Marketing

Salesforce moved to buy its way deeper into real-time marketing on Tuesday, signing a definitive agreement to acquire Braze, the customer engagement platform, for approximately 5.66 billion dollars in enterprise value. Braze shareholders will receive 47.50 dollars per share in cash, a premium of about 58 percent over Monday's closing price of 30.04 dollars, according to Bloomberg.

Braze stock was halted before the New York open while Salesforce shares fell about 3 percent on the news. The deal is expected to close in Salesforce's fiscal 2028, which begins in early February 2027, subject to Braze shareholder approval and regulatory clearances. Salesforce said the transaction does not change its fiscal 2027 guidance, and J.P. Morgan is advising Salesforce while Qatalyst Partners is advising Braze.

Braze's technology coordinates personalized messaging across mobile apps, websites, email, SMS and WhatsApp from a cloud-native, event-streaming architecture that continuously updates customer profiles as people browse, buy and use products. The company says it powers trillions of messages and journey actions each year for about 2,770 customers, including Canva, Dairy Queen, Equinox, Instacart, Urban Outfitters and Venmo.

The AI angle is BrazeAI, the platform's decisioning engine that optimizes content, offers, channels and timing for each interaction. Salesforce plans to fold those capabilities into all four layers of its architecture — Data 360, Customer 360, Agentforce and SIForce — with Marketing Cloud as the most direct beneficiary. "Most of that wow comes from knowing your customer, and responding at just the right moment," said Patrick Stokes, Salesforce's president of applications and marketing.

Braze CEO and co-founder Bill Magnuson said the company shipped at its fastest pace in history over the past year and that BrazeAI is helping marketers get ideas live faster. He committed to continuing to build as Braze and investing in its customer and partner community. Co-founder Jon Hyman and the company's mobile and data engineering expertise come with the deal.

In its announcement, Salesforce framed the acquisition around the pressure AI is putting on marketers, who now need agentic solutions that understand customers, make decisions and act in real time. The company said it is pursuing that shift through both organic innovation and acquisitions that meet its M&A framework — a notable stance for a company that had recently favored tuck-in deals like Listen Labs and Loops.

For the broader market, the deal is the latest evidence that large software companies are willing to pay full price for platforms with live customer data pipelines — the raw material agentic marketing needs. It also gives Salesforce's Agentforce story a proven high-volume B2C channel, at a moment when investors are asking exactly where the revenue from AI agents will actually land.