Salesforce’s $8b Informatica bet—fixing enterprises’ data plumbing to fuel AI

Salesforce’s $8 billion all-cash agreement to acquire Informatica marks its boldest move since the $27 billion Slack deal in 2021. However, unlike Slack, a collaboration asset that eventually blended into Salesforce’s messaging fabric, Informatica is an enterprise-grade data backbone. With this acquisition, Salesforce is no longer just building around the customer experience; it’s going straight for the enterprise data core—and betting that owning the plumbing is the only way its AI dreams will flow. Why? Because over 40% of enterprise data is unusable, creating a 25–35% opportunity cost—this acquisition is a response to that crisis.

For enterprise leaders, this move is more than another piece of mergers and acquisition (M&A) cacophony. It rewrites the map of the enterprise data landscape, forces strategic reassessment of platform commitments, and raises new questions around integration, vendor overlap, and the risks of consolidation. Most critically, it demands a sober look at whether Salesforce is now ready to serve as the central nervous system of enterprise data operations, transcending CRM.

Salesforce is buying the plumbing—because GenAI needs clean pipes

Generative AI might be hot, but its Achilles’ heel remains dirty, disconnected, and non-compliant data. With 60% of enterprises citing data quality as a barrier to effective AI, Salesforce’s Informatica acquisition fills the most glaring gap in its Einstein 1 proposition: trusted data. For all its ambition, Salesforce’s Einstein 1 platform is only as good as the data foundation it stands on. That foundation has been shaky. Data Cloud made promises but has struggled to live up to them due to integration gaps and a limited governance layer.

With this acquisition, Salesforce isn’t just buying another SaaS product—it’s buying a mature, cloud-agnostic, metadata-driven platform that provides:

• Data integration across sources and formats
• Master data management (MDM)
• Lineage, metadata, and privacy controls
• Automation and AI-ready data pipelines

This is the infrastructure that allows GenAI to operate reliably, safely, and compliantly in complex enterprise environments. By integrating Informatica’s Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) with Data Cloud and Einstein, Salesforce will now be able to say: We don’t just have AI tools—we have AI-ready data.

MuleSoft versus Informatica: Redundant or complementary?

This acquisition also raises a strategic dilemma that enterprise buyers are already watching closely: What happens to MuleSoft?

Acquired in 2018 for $6.5 billion, MuleSoft was pitched as the glue connecting apps and systems through API-led integration. But while powerful, MuleSoft has shown limitations in data-centric workloads:

• It excels in API orchestration but lacks mature capabilities in data quality, cataloging, or governance.
• It’s more operationally focused, whereas Informatica supports data transformation at the enterprise scale, especially in regulated industries.

From a platform strategy lens, Informatica is the stronger long-term play for data-centric AI enablement. It can do what MuleSoft can’t: turn fragmented, cross-cloud data into trusted, usable assets.

So, could Salesforce spin-off MuleSoft to appease regulators or fund the Informatica deal? Absolutely—and it would make strategic sense. A divestiture:

• Simplifies antitrust concerns around data integration market share.
• Frees up capital to help finance an all-cash deal.
• Resolves overlapping go-to-market narratives around ‘data connectivity.’

While Salesforce may publicly position these two platforms as complementary, enterprise buyers should prepare for strategic rationalization and potential disruption if and when a spin-off occurs.

From CRM to enterprise data orchestrator

This move accelerates Salesforce’s evolution from a front-office CRM suite to a full-stack enterprise data platform (see Exhibit 1). Salesforce now needs to speak not just to CIOs but also to CDOs and COOs—bringing data conversations into business transformation agendas, not just platform integration roadmaps.

Exhibit 1: Once Informatica is absorbed, Salesforce will control all major layers of the modern data stack

Source: HFS Research, 2025

This is a direct challenge to Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, and Snowflake—particularly for enterprises seeking a single vendor for AI, data, and workflow.

It also pressures best-of-breed providers across the integration and governance ecosystem. Vendors such as Collibra, Alation, Talend, SnapLogic, and Boomi now face a formidable platform that can offer bundled, vertically integrated solutions, with Salesforce’s go-to-market muscle behind them.

Market disruption: Competitors in the blast radius

As enterprises reject effort-based contracts in favor of outcome-centric platforms, Salesforce’s integrated AI-ready stack could redefine how data value is delivered at scale (see Exhibit 2).

The broader message is clear: Salesforce wants to shrink the enterprise data stack into its own platform. The value proposition is simplification. The risk is vendor
lock-in.

Exhibit 2: The combined Salesforce + Informatica stack sends shockwaves across several parts of the enterprise software ecosystem

Source: HFS Research, 2025

Strategic implications for enterprise customers

1. Fewer vendors to manage—but more architectural decisions to make. Salesforce’s pitch to enterprise buyers will focus on simplification: A single ecosystem that covers CRM, data governance, analytics, and AI. But fewer vendors don’t always mean less complexity. Enterprises with existing Informatica or MuleSoft deployments will need to rationalize licensing, integrate roadmaps, and redesign parts of their architecture.
2. Your AI strategy just got tied to your data strategy. The acquisition makes it even clearer that AI success requires trustworthy data pipelines. Enterprises that ignore data governance in favor of AI acceleration are likely to hit walls. This acquisition gives Salesforce a seat at the CDO and CIO table, going beyond CMOs.
3. Vertical play becomes more credible. Informatica brings credibility to Salesforce’s vertical ambitions. Whether it’s patient data in healthcare, risk data in financial services, or compliance data in manufacturing, Salesforce now has the tools to go beyond CRM and serve as a trusted enterprise data partner in regulated environments.
4. Integration overhead will grow. Enterprises should anticipate new training needs, new licensing structures, and increased dependencies on Salesforce’s evolving platform. This may be justified only if Salesforce executes the integration vision quickly and cleanly.
5. Upskilling and data talent challenge. Buying the plumbing is one thing; deploying it with the right talent is another. Enterprise buyers must now upskill around metadata, MDM, and governance to extract ROI from the Salesforce+Informatica ecosystem.

The Bottom Line: AI doesn’t run on aspiration—it runs on data. Salesforce just bought the plumbing. Now enterprise buyers must work on the plugging approach.

With data debt costing enterprises 30% of their performance, Salesforce is placing a calculated bet to become the data steward of the AI-first enterprise. By acquiring Informatica, it’s building the foundation it should have had before it started selling GenAI features. For enterprise leaders, this moment demands action:

• Reassess your Salesforce roadmap in light of its expanded data ambitions.
• Audit your integration and governance landscape—are you duplicating what Salesforce now offers?
• Pressure-test Salesforce’s post-acquisition integration plans. Don’t assume seamless functionality.
• Evaluate lock-in risk versus simplification upside.