Salesforce Wants to Buy an AI Platform for Customer Research — Business Insider
The company aims to strengthen one of its key assets—the Agentforce AI platform
The acquisition of Listen Labs will help Salesforce develop Agentforce / Photo: JHVEPhoto/Shutterstock
Salesforce, a developer of a cloud-based customer relationship management system, is in talks to acquire the AI startup Listen Labs for approximately $2 billion, Business Insider reports, citing sources. Listen Labs is developing an AI-powered market analysis platform.
The negotiations are not yet complete, and the deal may ultimately fall through, one of the publication’s sources clarified. Representatives from Salesforce and Listen Labs did not respond to Business Insider’s requests for comment.
Why This Deal Matters
The acquisition of Listen Labs will help Salesforce develop Agentforce—its own platform featuring AI agents. As Business Insider notes, the company aims to go beyond simply automating routine tasks. Listen Labs’ tools will help Agentforce better understand customer needs, recommend relevant products, and create ideal sales proposals for sales managers to successfully close deals.
Salesforce is actively developing its AI products, focusing on enterprise AI agents. According to The Information, the company also considered acquiring the HuggingFace neural network development platform before the startup was acquired by Nvidia.
The agreement between Salesforce and Listen Labs could be part of a recent wave of major acquisitions in the AI market, including Stripe's $8 billion acquisition of OpenRouter, Business Insider adds.
What Is Known About Listen Labs
The startup was founded in 2023 by Alfred Valfors and Florian Jungermann. The founders used an early version of the product—which later became Listen Labs—to conduct interviews with their audience. This helped them understand just how effective and valuable the use of AI in market research could be, according to Business Insider.
The startup's software automates a significant portion of qualitative research, which typically requires a great deal of time and money. Listen Labs' clients include Microsoft, Anthropic, Google, Nestlé, Sweetgreen, and Perplexity.
Earlier this year, during its latest funding round, Listen Labs was valued at $500 million. Investors in the project include Sequoia Capital, Ribbit Capital, Conviction Partners, and Pear VC.
This article was AI-translated and verified by a human editor
