Salesforce has agreed to acquire Cimulate, an emerging player in AI-powered product discovery and agentic commerce, as it continues to expand its commerce and retail portfolio.
The acquisition is designed to accelerate Salesforce’s Agentforce Commerce roadmap, particularly in search and discovery. As retailers move away from keyword-based search toward intent-driven experiences, the CRM giant is positioning agentic AI as a core differentiator in how shoppers discover, evaluate, and convert on products.
Cimulate has developed an intent-aware context engine built specifically for retail. The platform blends real and simulated shopper journey data to interpret shopper intent across browsing and buying moments, enabling more relevant and personalized discovery throughout the commerce journey. Integrating these capabilities into Agentforce Commerce will help retailers deliver search experiences that are more conversational, contextual and responsive in real time, Salesforce said.
Nitin Mangtani, SVP & GM, Commerce and Retail at Salesforce noted the reflects Salesforce’s strategy to embed agentic AI more deeply into commerce workflows:
“The future of commerce is agentic, moving beyond simple transactions to intuitive, conversational discovery. By integrating Cimulate’s technology into Agentforce Commerce, we’re helping retailers close the gap between shopper intent and action, delivering experiences that feel more natural, relevant, and effective.”
Cimulate’s team will join Salesforce as part of the transaction, which is expected to close in the first quarter of Salesforce’s fiscal year 2027. Salesforce said the talent will support continued innovation across Agentforce Commerce as retailers look to balance personalization with scale. John Andrews, CEO and Co-Founder of Cimulate, added:
“Joining Salesforce allows us to scale our technology and put it in the hands of the world’s leading retailers. Together, we can help brands move beyond legacy search to experiences that truly understand what shoppers are looking for and respond in real time.”
The Cimulate acquisition follows a series of targeted Salesforce deals aimed at strengthening its AI, data and industry-specific capabilities. Over the past two years, the company has focused its M&A strategy on technologies that extend autonomous agents, real-time data activation and vertical solutions, especially in customer service, sales automation and commerce. Within retail, Salesforce has been steadily layering AI-driven capabilities to support more adaptive customer journeys across marketing, commerce and service.
The company has also been investing in the operational side of agentic AI, helping enterprises manage growing fleets of AI agents across platforms. Recent enhancements to MuleSoft Agent Fabric introduce a unified control plane designed to govern AI agents, tools, and metadata in a single, cohesive network. Central to the update are new Agent Scanners that automatically detect and catalog AI agents running across Agentforce, Amazon Bedrock, Google Cloud’s Vertex AI and other agent platforms, aiming to address a key challenge for organizations struggling with fragmented and difficult-to-manage agent ecosystems.
With Cimulate, Salesforce is sharpening its focus on the discovery layer of commerce, an area that has become key as shopper expectations shift toward more intuitive, intent-led interactions. The move underscores how agentic AI is becoming central to the next phase of digital commerce experiences.
