Salesforce agrees to acquire voice-agent company Cresta, reportedly for $2.7B

Salesforce has signed a definitive agreement to buy Cresta, a startup that builds voice agents for customer service. Cresta's agents handle complex calls end to end, including the messy reality of callers interrupting mid-sentence. The company also sells conversation-analysis software that coaches human contact-center agents. Salesforce did not disclose the price; The Information reports about $2.7 billion.

The deal adds real-time voice to Salesforce's Agentforce push, which has so far centered on text and workflow agents inside CRM. Voice is technically harder: latency, turn-taking and handling barge-in all decide whether a call feels natural. Buying Cresta gives Salesforce a production-tested stack rather than building one from scratch.

The acquisition fits this week's theme of enterprises turning agents into products: Microsoft is rolling out Copilot Autopilot and Agent 365, and AWS reports twice as many AgentCore agents deployed in Q3 as in the prior three quarters combined. Contact centers are one of the clearest places to measure AI return on investment, through handle time and resolution rates, which explains the premium.

Things to watch: regulatory review, how Cresta's customers on other CRMs are treated, and whether Salesforce prices voice agents per conversation or per seat.