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Salesforce, ServiceNow invest in Genesys agentic AI workflow
Two rivals pump cash into CCaaS leader Genesys in hopes that their respective AI agents grow roots into its users' contact centers.
Genesys will receive an infusion of $1.5 billion from Salesforce and ServiceNow over the next six months to invest in agentic AI integrations.
Salesforce will invest $750 million in Genesys to further build CX Cloud, an integration with Genesys' contact center as a service (CCaaS) platform. ServiceNow's $750 million investment is earmarked for further development of Unified Experience, its joint offering with Genesys.
Genesys is known for contact center workforce management and workflow orchestration, while Salesforce and ServiceNow have emerged as rivals in the race for agentic AI mind share in the CX realm.
The investments from the respective companies -- both longtime Genesys partners -- reflect ambitions to plant their AI agents in more contact centers and reap the associated revenue gains, said Rebecca Wettemann, founder of Valoir, an independent research firm.
"[ServiceNow and Salesforce] understand that, ultimately, whoever owns orchestration gets to make a lot of calls about where money gets spent on AI," Wettemann said. "Genesys has experience orchestration beyond what either of those guys are doing natively right now."
ServiceNow has also forged similar strategic agentic AI workflow integrations with other CCaaS vendors, such as Five9, Nice and Zoom.
IPO looms large
The investments from Salesforce and ServiceNow represent a sizable stake in Genesys, which recently topped $2 billion in annual recurring revenue.
Genesys was a publicly traded company until 1999, when it was bought by Alcatel-Lucent, which sold it to private equity firms in 2012. Salesforce Ventures also led a $580 million investment round for Genesys in 2021. In October 2024, Genesys confidentially filed for an IPO, according to a Reuters report. Earlier this year, it was widely reported that the company had been planning a May IPO, but that had been delayed until later this year due to a bumpy stock market.
The new cash infusion could signal that the IPO -- or possibly an acquisition by Salesforce or ServiceNow -- is getting closer, Wettemann said.
"You've got to figure that there are a number of people -- investors and executives included -- who have been waiting for an exit for a while," she said. "[Also] keep in mind that both Salesforce and ServiceNow like to try before they buy."
Salesforce acquires Bluebirds
Salesforce entered a definitive agreement to acquire AI vendor Bluebirds late last week. The tiny company, which has $5.5 million in funding, specializes in AI top-of-funnel prospecting for CRM systems.
Bluebirds' AI agent sequences a salesperson's high-value leads with data enrichment such as firmographics and what it calls "waterfall events" derived from public filings, job listings and a user's former customers that have switched companies. The agent can also suggest messaging for sales outreach based on its data findings.
Salesforce plans to integrate Bluebirds into Sales Cloud and Agentforce upon closing the acquisition later this year.
The technology promises to improve efficiency in the sales process, according to Kris Billmaier, executive vice president and general manager of Salesforce Sales Cloud, in a press release. He added that Bluebirds' tech fits well into Salesforce's AI roadmap.
Don Fluckinger is a senior news writer for Informa TechTarget. He covers customer experience, digital experience management and end-user computing. Got a tip? Email him.
