Salesforce to acquire AI research startup Listen Labs

Salesforce has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Listen Labs, an artificial intelligence startup specializing in customer research and human behavior simulation. While the companies have not officially disclosed the financial terms, reports suggest the deal could be valued at approximately $2 billion.

Listen Labs utilizes AI agents to conduct customer interviews, analyze feedback, and create digital twins to simulate how buyers might respond to specific decisions. The technology, which can perform research in days that previously took months, is expected to be integrated into Salesforce’s Marketing Cloud and Service Cloud. The Listen Labs leadership team will join Salesforce AI Labs.

This acquisition follows other recent strategic moves by Salesforce, including the purchase of customer service automation firm Fin and the introduction of the Koa CRM model, which is built on NVIDIA’s Nemotron technology. Additionally, Salesforce has expanded its partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to integrate AWS agents and models directly into Slack and Agentforce.