Enterprise software giant Salesforce has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire voice AI startup Cresta, in a deal that would add AI agents for handling complex customer calls to its customer service business.
The deal is valued at $2.7 billion, according to The Information, which cited a person familiar with the matter.
Cresta's voice agents hold natural, real-time conversations, handle interruptions, and operate at enterprise scale for leading brands including Marriott, Comcast, and Alaska Airlines, according to a Monday announcement, with Salesforce aiming to combine them with its customer relationship management platform. Cresta's platform also coaches human representatives and tests and improves voice agents, the company said.
"Voice is where service is hardest to get right, and where it matters most to customers," Salesforce EVP and GM of Agentforce and Service Cloud Kishan Chetan said in the statement. "Cresta has built voice agents that handle complex, high-volume calls for some of the world's largest brands. As more service is resolved in the conversation itself, together we'll bring the customer, the conversation, and the outcome into one place."
Cresta will continue supporting the contact center and telephony platforms its customers currently use after the acquisition closes, Salesforce said.
"Cresta's mission is to turn every customer interaction into a competitive advantage for our customers through a single agentic operating system for customer experience," Cresta CEO Ping Wu added. "Now, by uniting our platform with Salesforce, we will realize our full vision at scale, embedding real-time conversation intelligence and agentic experiences directly into Salesforce's first-class customer service platform."
The transaction is expected to close in the first quarter of Salesforce's 2028 fiscal year, subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions.