Salesforce is acquiring Braze so every customer gets the VIP treatment

Think about the best service you've ever had. Chances are it was somewhere small. The café that starts your coffee as you walk in. The local shop that remembers what you bought last time.

It works because they know you, and they notice you the moment you arrive. With a few hundred regulars, one person can keep it all in their head. But with millions of customers, no person can do that. 

This is the opportunity behind Salesforce's US$5.66 billion deal to buy Braze, announced on 20 October.

Here's who Braze is, why Salesforce wants it, and why we think the real win comes when marketing and service finally share notes.

Who is Braze?

Braze started in New York in 2011 as Appboy. Founders Bill Magnuson, Jon Hyman and Mark Ghermezian built it to help apps stay in touch with their users.

As it grew beyond apps into email, SMS and the web, it renamed itself Braze in 2017. It listed on the Nasdaq in 2021.

Today it's a serious operation:

• About 2,770 brands, including Instacart, Venmo and Canva.
• US$738 million in revenue last financial year, up 24%.
• 4.5 trillion messages and automated actions powered in 2025 alone.
• More than 2,000 people across 15 offices in the Americas, EMEA and APAC.

What Braze actually does

At its heart, Braze is 2 things working together:

• First, a live profile of every customer. Braze plugs into your app, your website and your customer data. Every tap, search, purchase or abandoned cart updates that person's profile the moment it happens.
• Second, a messaging engine that acts on it. Your marketing team sets the goal, like welcoming new customers or winning back quiet ones. Braze uses each live profile to work out what to send, where and when. Then it sends it.

Every click, reply or silence goes straight back into the profile. So it keeps learning.

Think of it as a shop assistant who never forgets a face, and can serve millions of people at once.

What that looks like for your customers

• Messages that match what they just did. Browse, buy or leave something in the cart, and Braze knows straight away. The next message reflects today, not last month.
• Offers picked for them, not for everyone. Braze's AI chooses the content and offer each person is most likely to care about.
• Contact on the channel they actually use. Push, email, SMS, WhatsApp or in-app. If someone never opens emails, Braze stops relying on email.
• Messages at the time they're most likely to look. Not 9am for the whole list. Lunchtime for the customer who shops on their break.
• Less noise over time. Braze learns from how each customer responds, so what they get keeps getting more relevant.

Salesforce is building the full loop

Salesforce has always been strong on the record. Who the customer is, what they bought, what they complained about last March. 

What its marketing side has lacked is speed. Braze gives it the missing piece: the ability to act the moment a customer does something.

Look at the pattern.

Informatica last year, for data. Fin this year, for AI service agents. And now Braze, for real-time engagement. 

Data. Decisions. Action.

Braze is set to plug into Data 360, Agentforce and Marketing Cloud. The idea is simple: a marketing message that finally knows what sales and service know, the moment they know it.

Why we're excited: marketing and service finally meet

Braze looks after customers before they need help. Fin looks after them when they do.

Soon, Salesforce will own both.

We're the first Salesforce partner in Australia to also become a Fin partner. We've also been building AI service agents since late 2024, for businesses like Kudosity and Henry Schein. 

One thing we've noticed along the way: Service knows things marketing never hears about.

We call it the awkward follow-up. A customer tells the help desk their order arrived broken. 2 hours later, marketing emails them a "you might also like" offer. Same company. 2 conversations that never met.

Picture it joined up: Fin sorts out the broken order and processes the refund in one chat. Braze sees that, holds the promo, and sends a thank-you-for-your-patience note instead.

The customer feels heard, not targeted.

That joined-up version isn't a product yet. Salesforce hasn't published a combined roadmap. But the pieces are about to sit under one roof, and that's what has us excited.

It's also why we're doing what we always do: trying it on ourselves first. Fin is going to work on ProQuest's own customer support before we bring it to anyone else. Real, messy questions. Honest lessons. We'll share them as we go.

Salesforce has spent more than 25 years learning who your customers are. Now it’s buying the ability to reach them at exactly the right moment.

The winners won’t be the brands with the most data. They’ll be the ones that act on it in the moment.