Salesforce to Acquire Listen Labs, an AI Customer Research Platform

What Listen Labs does

Listen Labs builds AI agents that design studies, conduct in-depth research and synthesize insights. Salesforce says the platform automates the full lifecycle of connecting with customers and analyzing their feedback, turning qualitative input into insights that decision-makers and other agents can use at scale.

According to Salesforce, the agents autonomously design studies, recruit participants, run the research and summarize the findings in a single platform. They can draw on a global network of more than 50 million participants and run interviews around the clock in more than 120 languages. The aim, the company says, is to gather perspectives from more people and markets in less time.

Simulating customers with digital twins

Beyond running interviews, Listen Labs offers what it calls digital twins: AI simulations grounded in real customer behavior. These generate simulated responses that let teams and agents compare approaches and refine plans before doing further customer or user testing.

Decision-makers can use this to explore how customers might react to a new product, a marketing message or an idea before bringing it to market. Salesforce says the combined offering will help companies move beyond static surveys and traditional market research to understand, and even simulate, what customers will do and why.

How it fits into Salesforce

Salesforce says the acquisition will expand its customer and user understanding capabilities and complement Marketing Cloud, Service Cloud and its broader AI portfolio.

Aman Naimat, President of AI Labs at Salesforce, said Listen Labs has "reimagined customer experience, market research, and customer simulation with AI agents." He added that Salesforce looks forward to expanding access to these agentic capabilities so that more companies and governments can make faster, better-informed decisions.

Alfred Wahlforss, CEO and Co-Founder of Listen Labs, said companies have always wanted to hear from every customer, but until now it was only possible to talk to a handful. "With AI, a company can now have thousands of real conversations at once and even simulate how customers will respond before making a move," he said.

Timing and what it means

The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of Salesforce's fiscal year 2027. It remains subject to customary closing conditions, including the receipt of required regulatory clearance. The source does not disclose financial terms.

For Salesforce customers, the deal points to research and feedback analysis becoming part of the same ecosystem as marketing and service tools, with AI agents handling work that previously took months. Until the deal closes, the capabilities described remain those of Listen Labs as a standalone company.