With aims of tackling AI project failures, Salesforce is expanding its data, governance, security, and semantic capabilities across Salesforce to keep agents performing consistently – with the same accuracy, context, and control.
This initiative also brings in the power of Informatica – which Salesforce acquired for $8B in May 2025 – to create a unified data architecture for agentic AI for them to operate safely and responsibly.
What Are the New Innovations?
According to a study by RAND, 80% of AI projects fail, boiling down to poor data quality and fragmented integration. Adoption of Salesforce’s flagship AI tool has been slow, with many businesses still skeptical of fully deploying agents.
Salesforce’s innovations act as “scaffolding” for the agentic enterprise, which introduces a new model of work where humans and agents can collaborate properly. For Salesforce, these steps have been made to encourage businesses to leave the experimental stage and trust that their agents can work in real-world situations.
Some of the key innovations introduced are:
- Data Cloud Context Indexing: An indexing pipeline in Data Cloud that helps agents interpret unstructured data through a business-aware lens, helping to find the right answers faster.
- Data Cloud Clean Rooms: Allows companies to share, collaborate, and analyze data without moving or exposing raw data.
- Tableau Semantics: An AI-powered semantic layer integrated into Data Cloud that translates raw data into business language.
- MuleSoft Agent Fabric: To mitigate “agent sprawl” – where agents are fragmented across teams, platforms, and vendors – MuleSoft Agent Fabric provides businesses with one single place to register, orchestrate, and govern every AI agent.
- Embedded AI Security and Compliance: AI-powered security capabilities that are embedded across every Salesforce platform, which includes integrations with industry leaders like CrowdStrike and Okta.
In essence, these new features feel like Salesforce is bringing everything together to help scale Agentforce responsibly and provide their customers with more structure and understanding around where their agents are and what they’re doing.
Informatica in the Fold
Perhaps the most important development is Salesforce’s plan to integrate Informatica soon after completing the purchase of the company.
Salesforce acquired Informatica in May of this year for $8B, with the deal subject to close by Q1 2027. Informatica has long been a leader in data integration, governance, and Master Data Management (MDM) – having these capabilities within the Salesforce platform will deliver the metadata intelligence needed to make agentic AI reliable at scale.
It’s no secret that Salesforce is pushing hard on Data Cloud and Agentforce, and both need clean, connected data to succeed.
Introducing Informatica strengthens these products massively – and more importantly, strengthens Salesforce’s pitch for Agentforce. Informatica guarantees AI insights are built on data that is ready, which will only help with getting customers on board with buying the product.
Here’s what Informatica brings to the table:
- Data Catalogs: A detailed, enterprise-wide map of data and metadata so AI agents know exactly what information they are working with.
- Integration Pipelines: Real-time connectivity across hybrid and multi-cloud systems, feeding Data Cloud with consistent and current data.
- Governance and Quality: Enforcing consistency and accuracy while reducing duplication, which is a vital safeguard for AI decision-making.
- Privacy & MDM: Creating a single source of truth for sensitive information, from customer records to financial data.
In practical terms, Informatica’s role is to ensure every AI agent in the Salesforce ecosystem can act on unified, trustworthy, and explainable data. For enterprises, that means shifting from pilot projects riddled with data gaps to full-scale deployments where AI can automate workflows responsibly.
Final Thoughts
Salesforce deserves credit for its current efforts to deliver more for customers. It seems they’ve listened to feedback and are working toward a sustainable framework that businesses can rely on moving forward.
The real test will be whether these initiatives deliver tangible results and whether they truly move the needle on adoption rates.
