Salesforce has agreed to acquire Braze for approximately $5.66 billion in enterprise value, with closing expected in early 2027. For marketing leaders, the headline is platform consolidation. The larger signal is that the value in customer engagement is shifting from data and campaigns to the decisions made about each customer across an enterprise.

Decisioning uses AI, machine learning, and customer context to determine the next best action, offer, channel, or timing for an individual customer. Salesforce brings customer intelligence through CRM and Data 360. Braze adds decision intelligence through its reinforcement-learning engine, along with real-time engagement across mobile, web, email, SMS, WhatsApp, and in-app. The integration model has not been announced, but the two capabilities are complementary. Over time, we expect Salesforce to leverage more Braze customer behavior-based capabilities across broader enterprise use cases in commerce, sales, service, and loyalty.

Merkle’s 2026 CX Imperatives research reveals that only 51% of consumers find the personalization they receive extremely or very helpful. Brands have more data and tools than ever. What they lack is a consistent way to decide what each customer should see next, and why. More automation alone will not solve that.
 

What this means for you now

If you use Braze or Salesforce Marketing Cloud, you do not need to change course today. The two companies remain separate until the deal closes, and both product lines are expected to coexist afterward. If you are selecting a new marketing automation platform, the decision is more nuanced and warrants a conversation.

The more important questions are strategic:

• How does this affect your Salesforce CRM? Agentic journeys across sales, service, and media are now possible. Braze should open new paths for value and broader behavior-based engagement capabilities.
• What is your migration path? Marketing Cloud Engagement, Marketing Cloud Next, and Braze will coexist for a time. Salesforce has not yet published a combined roadmap, so plan around the uncertainty.
• Where should decisioning sit? Both platforms now offer AI agents and decisioning. Define which agent owns which customer moment, and how Agentforce and Braze should work together to connect customer understanding across the enterprise.
• What will it cost? Redundant capabilities can mean paying twice. Map where features overlap before committing to new licenses and include total cost of ownership in the decision.
• How will you govern it? As more decisions become AI-driven, someone must set the rules, measure outcomes, and correct the system when it gets things wrong.
   

What good looks like

Results are already visible. A major QSR brand working with Merkle and Braze grew engagement across push and SMS by 14% year over year. The gain came from connecting real-time behavioral signals to decisioning, not from adding more campaigns.

Owning more platforms will not set enterprises apart. Winning will come from getting decision strategy right: identifying which customer decisions matter most, building that judgment into the systems that act on it, and proving the value on the P&L.
 

Next step

Merkle offers a Modern CRM Readiness Workshop for brands navigating this transition. We map your current engagement architecture against the converging Salesforce and Braze stack, identify the customer decisions that matter most to your business, and build a prioritized action plan before the roadmap shifts. Request a workshop through your Merkle contact or reach out directly.

About the authors: 

• David Novak
  Global Head of CRM, Merkle, a dentsu Company
  President, Data-Driven Marketing, Merkle Americas
• Mickael Yabi
  Head of Decisioning Consulting, Merkle UKI