Salesforce in talks to acquire AI platform Listen Labs for $2 billion - report

Salesforce Inc (NYSE:CRM) is reported to be in preliminary discussions to buy Listen Labs, an AI-driven customer research platform, for about $2 billion, according to Business Insider, which cited people familiar with the matter. The possible transaction highlights the software giant's continuing appetite for strategic assets that can strengthen its enterprise artificial-intelligence suite.

The talks are still active, though they could still break down without a deal, and the news of the possible acquisition had a mildly dampening effect on market sentiment. Salesforce shares fell 1.9% on Wednesday as investors evaluated the planned outlay against the company's broader capital-allocation strategy.

At that size, a deal would be the latest addition to an aggressive M&A push the cloud-software pioneer has carried out during 2026. Several months prior, Salesforce had made what stands as its biggest recent purchase by reaching an agreement to buy Fin, a customer-agent provider formerly named Intercom, at around $3.6 billion in mid-June.

That deal came after a rapid run of focused software buys aimed at deepening the embedding of generative and agentic AI capabilities across its platform. In early June, the enterprise company moved to acquire m3ter to bring native consumption-based monetization into Agentforce Revenue Management, just after it had acquired composable content platform Contentful to bolster its enterprise digital experience offerings.

The strategic push was set in motion early in the year through targeted bolt-on acquisitions of Momentum, a conversational insights platform, and Cimulate, an AI product discovery platform. By continuously layering specialized AI and data-orchestration assets into its core architecture, Salesforce is signaling to Wall Street that aggressive inorganic growth remains central to preserving its market leadership in the enterprise software sector.