Fisher & Paykel, Insulet, Equinix, Maserati among brands using Data Cloud and Agentforce to gain a 360 customer view and deliver smarter customer engagement

Gartner and IDC MarketScape name Salesforce a Leader in CDP Market Evaluations

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The need to harness all enterprise data in the age of AI is driving the rapid emergence of Salesforce Data Cloud as the critical intelligent activation layer. AI transformation is no longer optional‌ — ‌companies need unified data as the fuel to drive informed action across the enterprise. Consequently, businesses are increasingly choosing Salesforce Data Cloud and Agentforce to connect disparate data sources, unlocking immediate business value with AI-driven customer experiences grounded in truly unified data. Strong adoption across leading global brands and recognition from top industry analysts underscores this momentum.

Salesforce Data Cloud is the intelligent activation layer of the Salesforce Platform, designed to complement the systems you already have. It bridges data silos and harmonizes information from data lakes, warehouses, business applications, and both structured and unstructured formats — using low-code tools. Through this approach, enterprises can activate unified data across every department. This holistic customer understanding is the bedrock for successful AI initiatives, ensuring AI models and agents have the comprehensive context they need to perform effectively. Data Cloud helps unify disparate data and metadata into a single customer view, which grounds agents built with Agentforce — Salesforce’s digital labor platform — enabling more relevant, accurate output and actions, automation through data-triggered workflows, analytics in the flow of work, and powerful AI-powered applications.

This approach is delivering significant customer success and gaining industry recognition. For the second consecutive year, Salesforce has been named a Leader in the 2025 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Customer Data Platforms. We believe this acknowledges Salesforce’s ability to empower businesses globally with exceptional customer data solutions that drive AI-powered transformation. Furthermore, Forrester identified Salesforce as a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Customer Data Platforms for B2C, Q3 2024, and Salesforce was named a Leader in both IDC MarketScape reports for Worldwide Customer Data Platforms Focused on B2B and B2C Users 2024-2025. Additionally, Constellation Research highlighted Data Cloud as key to surfacing relevant insights for agentic use, noting its unique ability to join Salesforce data and external lakehouse data with zero copy for secure, governed use by agents. 

“Data Cloud is the leading data activation layer on the market because of its ability to unify data and metadata from any location and harmonize it to power every agent action, automation, and insight,” said Rahul Auradkar, EVP & GM, Unified Data Services & Einstein, Salesforce. “Our unique approach — combining hyperscale data capabilities, zero copy architecture, unstructured data processing, strong governance, and an open ecosystem — helps enterprises unlock and unify siloed data, providing the essential foundation for trusted AI.”

Leading brands are leveraging Data Cloud’s ability to unlock data from existing investments. Instead of requiring a “rip-and-replace” approach, Data Cloud integrates seamlessly using capabilities like zero-copy integration and an extensive, growing library of more than 270+ connectors (including partners like Shopify, Zendesk, Google BigQuery, and more). This open, flexible approach allows businesses like Equinix, Fisher & Paykel, Insulet, Maserati, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts, and CaixaBank to maximize their current IT investments, reduce data silos, and activate data where it’s needed most.

Data Cloud has been instrumental in allowing us to unlock trapped customer data and deliver a true Customer 360 view… We now have ample visibility into customers’ interaction histories, allowing our reps to build better relationships, solve more customer problems, and deliver top-notch customer care and brand loyalty.

Rudi Khoury, Chief Digital Officer, Fisher & Paykel

“Data Cloud has been instrumental in allowing us to unlock trapped customer data and deliver a true Customer 360 view … We now have ample visibility into customers’ interaction histories, allowing our reps to build better relationships, solve more customer problems, and deliver top-notch customer care and brand loyalty.” — Rudi Khoury, Chief Digital Officer, Fisher & Paykel 

“Data is fundamentally important to Insulet, serving as a huge growth enabler and competitive differentiator. Ensuring we have a unified data platform helps us move from insights to action, providing more powerful, personalized experiences that helps simplify life for people living with diabetes.” — Amit Guliani, acting Chief Technology Officer of Insulet 

“Implementing Salesforce Data Cloud will fundamentally shift our marketing data strategy … establishing a data-driven foundation for AI-powered personalization and automated workflows that are now essential to our competitive edge.” ‌— Adam Berlew, Chief Marketing Officer, Equinix 

“Unified data is the strategic foundation that helps us better understand, serve, and predict our customers’ guests’ needs. Data Cloud has transformed how we serve our guests, giving our agents a unified view that enables unprecedented personalization … Data Cloud allows us to seamlessly connect reservation, loyalty, and CRM data, enabling our agents to anticipate guest needs and create more meaningful interactions across our thousands of hotels properties.” — Scott Strickland, Chief Commercial Officer, Wyndham Hotels & Resorts 

“Slalom’s Data Cloud customer base grew by over 200% in 2024, especially within the important retail and healthcare industries. Innovations such as the Zero Copy Partner Network and agentic use cases were instrumental in this success. Slalom customers are operationalizing data from various sources throughout their organizations, and they excel by using an architecture that prioritizes business goals, providing a clear link to ROI with expanded use cases.” — Katie Lewis, Director, Slalom 

The Data Cloud difference: Connecting the full data universe 

Data Cloud bridges the gap between disparate data lakes, warehouses, and business applications – essential for delivering the personalized, relevant experiences customers expect. It acts as the orchestration layer connecting an enterprise’s entire data universe (from systems like Snowflake, Databricks, or Workday, to CRM data and external sources) to actionable insights wherever they’re needed, unlocking the full potential of data regardless of where it resides. For companies with significant investments in data lakes or warehouses like Snowflake, Databricks, Google BigQuery, or AWS, Data Cloud provides the ability to leverage its market-leading customer data platform (CDP) capabilities directly on top of that existing infrastructure.

Salesforce is advancing Data Cloud with enhanced zero copy, bi-directional capabilities. This enables near real-time data activation and seamless sharing to and from the external platforms customers already use, without data duplication. Notably, new outbound zero copy integrations are being introduced for Databricks (Beta) and Snowflake (coming Summer FY26). These expand existing connectivity options, facilitating richer data harmonization and allowing insights generated within Data Cloud to be effortlessly shared across systems.

Key Data Cloud innovations driving momentum

Data Cloud’s ongoing innovations, with a focus on unified data, real-time processing, data in and data out functionality, unstructured content capabilities, data governance, and more accurate search features, have redefined the customer data platform category, positioning it as the intelligent activation layer for the agentic AI era.

“The trinity of Data Cloud, Salesforce Customer 360 apps, and AI, all on an open, extensible and deeply unified platform, is key as customers unlock business value from all their enterprise data,” said Auradkar. “We continue to see strong Data + AI momentum, closing the year with $900 million in Data Cloud and AI annual recurring revenue and outsized usage and consumption at the end of fiscal year 2025 and 3,000 net-new paid Agentforce deals in Q4.”

Learn more:

• Read about how Data Cloud powers Agentforce
• Read about the advantages of zero copy
• What is Data Cloud?
• On-Demand Webinar: Unleashing Agentforce with Unified & Trusted Data
• Learn more about Data Cloud

Disclaimers:

IDC, IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Customer Data Platforms Focused on B2B Users 2024–2025 Vendor Assessment, #US50514223, December 2024; IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Customer Data Platforms Focused on B2C Users 2024–2025 Vendor Assessment, #US51778724, December 2024.

Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Customer Data Platforms, 26 March 2025, Lizzy Foo Kune, Rachel Smith, Benjamin Bloom, Suzanne White, Audrey Brosnan, David Walters, Adriel Tey. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner and Magic Quadrant is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

Forrester, The Forrester Wave™: Customer Data Platforms for B2C, Q3 2024, Joe Stanhope, 17 September, 2024.Forrester does not endorse any company, product, brand, or service included in its research publications and does not advise any person to select the products or services of any company or brand based on the ratings included in such publications. Information is based on the best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change. For more information, read about Forrester’s objectivity here.

Constellation Research, Behind the Scenes: The Force Behind Agentforce, Holger Mueller, March 2025.

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