Salesforce buys AI customer research platform Listen Labs for reported $2 billion

Salesforce announced a definitive agreement to acquire Listen Labs, an AI customer research startup founded in 2023, with the deal expected to close in Salesforce's fiscal fourth quarter of 2027. The company uses AI to automate research design, participant recruitment, interviews, and response analysis, with access to a network of over 50 million participants and support for more than 120 languages. Listen Labs also generates AI-powered "digital twins"—simulations intended to help companies predict customer behavior before testing with actual participants. Salesforce plans to integrate the platform into Marketing Cloud and Service Cloud to provide additional context to its AI agents, bringing qualitative customer research closer to existing CRM data within marketing workflows.