Salesforce Inc. has agreed to acquire Cresta Intelligence Inc., a venture-backed maker of customer service software, the company announced late Monday. Salesforce did not disclose the financial terms of the deal. The Information reported that the cloud giant is paying $2.7 billion for Cresta.
Cresta's platform relies on artificial intelligence to respond to customer inquiries and can handle more advanced tasks, such as scheduling doctor's appointments. It tailors its output to each customer's preferences, past interactions with support staff and related data. Businesses can build AI voice agents tuned to specific categories of support requests, such as an agent dedicated to processing device returns for an electronics retailer. Cresta also lets companies adjust which AI model powers an agent and set its regulatory compliance guardrails.
The platform can break complex support requests into smaller pieces that are handled in parallel, which often produces faster responses than a single general-purpose agent. In one example, separate agents could interpret a ticket, locate relevant help desk articles and scan those articles for troubleshooting advice. Cresta also ships an agent called Deputy, aimed at complicated tickets that require multiple employees; it gathers the information needed to fulfill a request, brings in the relevant workers and manages follow-up tasks such as reminders. Another agent gives human representatives real-time guidance during customer conversations, including flagging possible upselling opportunities and pulling information from external systems.
Cresta offers its core support automation features alongside related tools. Opera lets organizations fine-tune AI models for specific customer service use cases, while Synthetic Customers generates AI-produced support conversations that companies can use to test the reliability of new AI agents. Chief Executive Officer Ping Wu said that joining Salesforce would allow Cresta to realize its full vision at scale, embedding real-time conversation intelligence and agentic experiences directly into Salesforce's customer service platform.
The purchase is Salesforce's second multibillion-dollar deal in the customer service market this year. It previously agreed to buy Fin Inc., formerly Intercom Inc., for $3.6 billion; that company also built an AI platform that can answer support requests automatically. Salesforce's largest acquisition this year is its $5.66 billion purchase of Braze Inc., signed last month, which brings it an AI marketing platform that automatically delivers personalized promotions.
Salesforce expects to close both the Braze and Cresta deals in its 2028 fiscal year, which begins next February.
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