Salesforce and ServiceNow have invested $1.5B into agentic AI cloud software company Genesys.
Genesys, which launched the CX Cloud in collaboration with Salesforce and Unified Experience with ServiceNow over the last 18 months, plans to use part of the funding to boost its CCaaS-CRM offerings with the two tech giants, according to CX Today.
What Is the Funding for?
Part of the funding will also go towards repurchasing shares from equity holders, but Hellman & Friedman, along with Permira, will stay the majority owners, reports say.
Chairman and CEO of Genesys, Tony Bates, said: “Genesys is delivering long-term value to enterprises through end-to-end customer experience orchestration that can drive loyalty, grow revenue, and reduce operating costs.
“We’re proud to have the support of industry leaders like Salesforce and ServiceNow, and we believe this reflects growing momentum around agentic AI and the importance of connected, autonomous customer experiences.”
Genesys is known for its Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) offerings and has been innovative in its approach to bringing about a unified CRM-CCaaS approach with Salesforce and ServiceNow.
David Schmaier, President and Chief Strategy Officer at Salesforce, said: “This investment deepens our partnership with Genesys to deliver AI-assisted and agentic AI-powered customer experiences across every channel, from voice to digital.”
What Does This Mean for Salesforce?
Salesforce has been on something of an acquisition streak lately, with Convergence.ai and Informatica coming into the mothership’s fold earlier this year.
The CRM giant has also recently revealed that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire AI-prospecting platform Bluebirds for an undisclosed figure – in what appears to be a bid to boost Agentforce’s capabilities.
The theme here has been clear for a while: AI.
In terms of the capabilities of Genesys CX, this includes:
- Contact centre software.
- Digital channels to optimise, connect, and personalise experiences.
- Native, embedded AI that powers personalised experiences and mines customer insights.
- Workforce engagement management tools.
- Customer journey management solutions.
- A single cloud architecture for unifying your contact centre technology stack.
CEO and Principal Analyst at Valoir, Rebecca Wetteman, said that, as competition heats up between Salesforce and ServiceNow, both tech titans have incentives to “optimize the Genesys relationship, and cash is one way to do that”.
Final Thoughts
We seem to be seeing the rivalry between Salesforce and ServiceNow heating up to the point where both companies are competing for the same spaces, influence over SMBs, and each other’s primary markets.
ServiceNow announced earlier this year that it was entering the CRM space, and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said that the cloud giant would be entering the IT Service Management (ITSM) space.
As Wetteman is quoted as saying in the previous section, cash is one way to optimize a relationship. Bearing this in mind, the cold war between ServiceNow and Salesforce may come to benefit ISVs that offer AI solutions – who can now use the competition for influence (and the potential for acquisitions) between the two titans.
