Salesforce has acquired Informatica to provide AI agents with more reliable data and context. Combining Informatica’s metadata with MuleSoft’s real-time data creates an integrated platform that allows AI agents to reason and act more accurately.
As Salesforce explains, AI models have a wealth of general knowledge, but often know nothing about your organization. As soon as you start using AI for specific business processes, it sometimes has to guess what certain values mean or how they should be interpreted. Some things may still be clear, such as a customer number, but what if there is an order form number, invoice number, order number, ticket number, batch number, and quotation number? Or if an order has to be delivered from the same production batch? Or if there are different product numbers for all kinds of variations, such as color or fabric? If an AI makes the wrong connections, the consequences can sometimes be incalculable.
An AI must be able to understand what all the business data means and in what context such a number or description was created. That is what Informatica must ensure.
Data 360 as a foundation
Salesforce has now redeveloped virtually its entire platform on top of the Data 360 platform. This is the data platform that all Salesforce products work with and that Agentforce uses. Salesforce is now adding Informatica to Data 360. This gives Data 360 access to enterprise metadata and Informatica’s Master Data Management system. MuleSoft will then enrich this data with real-time data from operational systems. The result is a ‘unified engine’ that provides apps and AI agents with reliable context.
Rahul Auradkar, EVP & GM at Salesforce, argues that AI without context is the same as guessing or hallucinating. By combining Informatica’s metadata with real-time context from Data 360 and the integration power of MuleSoft, Salesforce can replace guessing with reasoning.
Informatica has a wealth of metadata
Informatica was founded in 1993 and specializes in data management. It has a wealth of knowledge and metadata from a wide range of industries, machines, and systems. Master Data Management (MDM) can supply many types of data to Data 360, such as data on objects, products, suppliers, etc. It ensures that data from specific industries or complex machines can be provided with the right context, so that the AI can be provided with the context on how to interpret the incoming data.
Whether it concerns legacy systems, machines in a factory, or cloud applications, Informatica’s MDM probably has the context of the data. Data 360 can combine that context with the data it already has from the organization, the customer, the order, or the ticket. In addition, MuleSoft can also be used to consult real-time data in external systems, so that, for example, the current status of a machine, the stock, or the shipment can be provided.
Salesforce will link Data 360 and Informatica’s Data Catalog to provide a single, clear overview of the data to an AI. Salesforce also wants to use Informatica’s Data Lineage technology to map the entire journey of data, so that it is clear exactly how data is used by systems and when it is modified.
To make things even more complex, partners such as Snowflake and Databricks, which are linked to Data 360 with so-called zero-copy connections, can also be used.
Agentforce 360 much more intelligent
Agentforce 360 already relied entirely on the Data 360 foundation built by Salesforce. With the acquisition and integration of Informatica, this foundation will become much stronger. It gives Agentforce a better memory and knowledge of data moving within organizations. The idea is that an agent will soon always have a complete picture and, for example, will not only see the order or support ticket, but the entire customer profile and the activity in the profile. This will enable them to make better decisions, just like a well-trained employee. Currently, AI agents are often compared to interns; Salesforce therefore wants to make a major quality improvement with Informatica. Whether they can deliver on this remains to be seen, of course.
Salesforce states that the first customers have started using these integrations. Wyndham Hotels & Resorts and Yamaha Motor Corporation are already using the approach. Both are very satisfied, according to Salesforce. The hotel states that the combination of Informatica, Data 360, MuleSoft, and Agentforce provides a clear and transparent picture of hotels, guests, and franchises. “The level of context helps us move faster and automate processes that previously required significant manual work.”