Salesforce targets gains with AI voice agents in latest acquisition

Salesforce confirmed it has signed an agreement to acquire AI-powered voice agent developer Tenyx in a move that will see the CRM provider onboard staff and technology from the firm.

Upon completion of the deal, Salesforce will benefit from an extension in its autonomous agent capabilities within ‘Agentforce Service Agent’ by incorporating Tenyx’s technology.

Tenyx’s expertise will help “advance its AI-driven solutions”, Salesforce said, particularly with regard to improving customer interactions by making it easier and more intuitive to engage with AI agents.

Notably, Tenyx’s co-founders - CEO Itamar Arel and CTO Adam Earle - will be making the move to Salesforce as part of the acquisition and are set to assist in the development of future AI-powered Salesforce offerings.

“The integration of Tenyx’s deep knowledge of voice AI with Salesforce Service Cloud positions Salesforce to set new standards in customer experience,” the company said in a statement

The acquisition is set to close in Q3 2025 of Salesforce’s fiscal year, which ends 31 October 2024. This will be subject to customary closing conditions.

The move is not Salesforce’s first in this field, and the firm has announced similar deals with other AI developers over the last year or so to strengthen its position in the market.

In September last year, for example, Salesforce penned a similar agreement with Airkit.ai, a company that allows users to build no-code customer service agents.

This acquisition closed the following month and Airkit.ai became part of Salesforce’s Service Cloud platform, continuing under management from the firm’s co-founder and CTO Adam Evans.

It’s also invested in a range of AI startups, including a $400 million commitment to Anthropic and a $270 million commitment to Cohere, both as part of Series C funding rounds.

Salesforce's talent acquisition tactic is becoming a recurring trend

Companies are increasingly adopting a strategy similar to Salesforce’s, bringing on staff from the firms they acquire or invest in, rather than simply absorbing intellectual property (IP).

Microsoft is a good example. Alongside investing in Inflection, Microsoft poached the firm’s chief AI executive Mustafa Suleyman, as well as two of the company's other co-founders.

Richard Conway, Founder of Elastacloud and Group CTO at Acora, thinks that this attraction to gaining staff through acquisition speaks volumes about the current availability of talent at high levels in the industry.

“Across the tech industry we are seeing a diminishing workforce of skilled and talented individuals. As more experienced individuals retire or move into non-technical roles, and with a hesitancy to invest in junior developers, the skills gap is widening,” Conway told ITPro.

“This growing gap makes acquisitions increasingly attractive for companies seeking to tap into pools of talented developers, engineers, and data scientists,” he added.

Though IP is valuable, Conway said, businesses need a strong skill base to “nurture and grow” IP and ensure that acquired technologies become even more valuable.

While purchasing a company just for its IP is logical, he elaborated, it can be counterproductive if a purchased codebase takes a long time to be fully integrated into existing software.

“Having a team of technically proficient staff who understand product development cycles enables the acquiring company to recreate and adapt IP far more efficiently. In this context, the technical skills are crucial.”.