The news just broke: Salesforce has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Qualified, and this might be the smartest AI GTM deal we’ve seen so far in 2025.
We use both Qualified and Agentforce for our AI GTM Agents at SaaStr. So we’ve got some real and possibly even for now, unique perspective here. There may not be many who are as deep with both AI agents as I type this. And that gives us some real insights on the ground.
We Are Deep On Both
We use both Qualified and Agentforce at SaaStr. We’re not theorizing about whether these products work together. We’ve been running them in production together, side-by-side, for months. Both on top of Salesforce as our core CRM and source of truth.
Quick numbers from our Qualified deployment (August through November):
- 697,000+ sessions on our website
- 1,000+ meaningful conversations (not just FAQ-style Q&A)
- 100+ meetings booked directly by the AI
- $1M+ in closed revenue in ~90 days
- 70%+ of our October + November closed-won deals came from AI-booked meetings
And our Agentforce numbers (deployed at Dreamforce, ~2 months in):
- ~5,000 emails sent to previously ghosted leads
- 72% open rate (vs. 0% when humans never sent the email)
- 10%+ response rate on contacts considered “dead”
- Already closing deals from leads that got zero follow-up for six months
We’re speaking from the trenches of running both AI GTM agent platforms simultaneously.
Why This Deal is Super, Super Smart
Let me explain why this is such a brilliant move for Salesforce, and why it’s going to accelerate Agentforce adoption much, much faster.
The Agentforce “Gap” (That Qualified Solves)
Agentforce is very powerful. If you had any doubt, see the data and metrics above. It works very well. And in fact, because it’s natively built inside of Salesforce, it arguably works the best of any AI GTM agent — once you are fully trained and in production.
But it’s more work to deploy than some simpler AI agents simply because it can do so many things. It’s a canvas to paint AI agents on top of.
And no AI Agent today like this gets there without human help. And that takes time. And the right resources.
You need to configure topics and actions. You need to ground it in your data with Data Cloud. You need to set up proper guardrails. It’s enterprise-grade, which means enterprise-grade implementation.
And that’s where Qualified shines, for GTM. Qualified is like an Agentforce “light” optimized for sales and marketing that’s still super powerful but relatively easy to deploy. You still need to train the agent, you still need a Forward Deployed Engineer, but the reality is its focus and architecture lets you get going in weeks.
And that will give Agentforce and Salesforce real scale, especially outside of tis largest enterprise accounts (which likely get the lion’s share of Agentforce attention today). Especially because Salesforce has so, so, so many customers to AI-ify. So many. And Qualified will turbocharge that.
Salesforce simply put will be able to close a lot, lot more AI Agent deals faster with Qualified as its second, and simpler-but-still-very-powerful AI agent offering here.
What Qualified Actually Does (And Why It’s Different from “Full” Agentforce)
Qualified built something special with Piper, their AI SDR Agent. It’s not just another chatbot. Piper is:
- Always-on inbound pipeline generation – She works your website 24/7 converting visitors into qualified leads
- Multi-modal – Text, voice, and now face-to-face video conversations on your website (we use all 3)
- Multi-channel – Website chat and email inbox, with seamless handoffs
- Multi-stage – Works the entire funnel from capturing new leads to nurturing warm leads to converting hot leads
- Deeply integrated – Native Salesforce integration (obviously), plus Demandbase, 6sense, HubSpot, Marketo, Gong, Slack, and more.
The Qualified team worked on the product for many years, but really much like Replit, Gamma, etc. it didn’t really get great until Claude 3.5 and really 4 or so. Everything changed at Qualified at the start of 2025, just like it did for Replit, Gamma, Lovable, etc. It got … great. Same basic workflow, but finally, LLMs that could make the agents really manage inbound and then outbound sales.
Asana increased pipeline by 22%. Greenhouse generated $27M in pipeline. Quantum Metric saw 100X ROI. Demandbase doubled their pipeline. And our real, honest data is above.
You can try it right now on the SaaStr AI 2026 website here:
Just talk to Amelia AI and you’ll see!
How We Actually Use Both at SaaStr
We use Qualified and Agentforce for completely different use cases, and many of you may end up doing the same with different AI Agents.
Qualified handles real-time inbound:
When someone lands on saastrannual.com or saastr.com and starts browsing our sponsorship pages, Qualified already knows who they are (if they’re in Salesforce), what company they’re from, and what pages they’re viewing. The AI engages instantly, qualifies them, and books a meeting—all before they’d even fill out a contact form the old way.
The magic? Full Salesforce context in real-time. The AI knows if they’ve attended our events before, if their colleague already talked to us, what their company size is. It’s not starting from zero.
Before Qualified, our process was brutal: prospect fills out form → goes into queue → I round-robin to a rep → rep responds (hours to 24 hours later) → back-and-forth to find meeting time → meeting finally happens with 10 minutes wasted on basic discovery.
Now? Prospect visits website → AI engages instantly → qualifies and books meeting in real-time → sales team gets a complete dossier before the call. We skip discovery entirely because the AI already did it.
One real example from the other day: A prospect books a sponsorship call. Before the meeting, Qualified tells us “Their CEO was also on the site yesterday looking at speaking opportunities, even though this person only asked about basic sponsorship.”
We mentioned it: “Hey, noticed your CEO was also checking out speaking. Should we look at a package that includes a speaking slot?” That’s context we’d never have had before.
Agentforce handles the “ghosted lead” problem:
Here’s a different problem Agentforce solves brilliantly: After SaaStr AI 2025, we discovered we had about 1,000 people our sales team never followed up with. These were people who literally filled out a form saying they wanted information for partnerships and sponsorships. We routed those leads to a human rep. And then… nothing.
This wasn’t cold outbound. And it wasn’t real-time inbound. It was warm leads that fell through the cracks—already in Salesforce, already raised their hand, already got ghosted.
Agentforce was perfect for this because it knows everything your Salesforce knows. Past interactions, company data, event attendance—all available to contextualize follow-up emails. We’re seeing 72% open rates on contacts that previously got zero follow-up.
We plan to do a lot more with Agentforce, but this was the low hanging fruit for us. And it’s crushed it.
The complementary power (for us):
- Qualified catches them live on the website when intent is highest
- Agentforce reactivates them from your CRM when humans drop the ball
Both platforms share the same superpower: native Salesforce context. But they apply it to different moments in the buyer journey. Having Qualified inside Salesforce makes this even more seamless.
Each honestly can do some of what the other does. And both platforms are evolving very rapidly. But our speed and agility is based on using the power of both together.
Why This is a “Match Made in Heaven” for Salesforce
#1. Qualified was BUILT on Salesforce from Day One
The founders—Kraig Swensrud (former Salesforce CMO) and Sean Whiteley (former Salesforce SVP)—are Salesforce alumni. They’ve already built and sold two companies to the ecosystem (Kieden to Salesforce in 2006, GetFeedback to SurveyMonkey). Qualified has always been Salesforce-native. This isn’t a forced integration—it’s a natural evolution.
As Kraig said in the announcement: “As Salesforce alumni, my co-founders and I have always built our products to deeply integrate with Salesforce.”
#2. Qualified Gives Agentforce Is a GTM Agent Force Multiplier
Salesforce has been pushing Agentforce hard since Dreamforce 2024. But adoption of new AI agents in the enterprise takes time.
Qualified already has 500+ companies using Piper. Big names like Box, Brex, Asana, GE Healthcare, Grubhub, Lattice. And SaaStr 🙂 That’s instant proof that agentic marketing works in production.
#3. This Solves the “Where Do I Start?” Problem
Here’s the reality: Every B2B company needs to figure out how to deploy AI agents. But most aren’t ready to build from scratch on Agentforce. Qualified gives them a fully-featured marketing agent they can deploy now, while they figure out their broader Agentforce strategy.
It’s brilliant product strategy: start with an easy win (Qualified for inbound), then expand to the full platform (Agentforce for everything else).
We accidentally did this same stair-stepping at SaaStr. Started with one AI tool, gained confidence, then expanded to 20+ agents. Having Qualified as the “easy first agent” inside Salesforce lowers the barrier to entry for the entire Agentforce ecosystem.
Big Picture: This is How AI M&A Should Work
Here’s my take on why this is maybe the smartest M&A for GTM I’ve seen in 2025. And likely the last deal of 2025 😉
Most AI acquisitions are about buying technology that might work in the enterprise. They’re bets on potential.
This deal is different. Salesforce is buying:
- A company built by their own alumni who deeply understand the platform
- A product that’s already Salesforce-native with 5,000+ customers
- Proven enterprise traction (Qualified raised $163M and hit a $471M valuation)
- Real revenue (~$32M ARR) with strong growth
- A category leadership position (#1 AI SDR Agent on G2)
And most importantly, they’re buying something that solves a real deployment problem for Agentforce. This acquisition makes the entire Agentforce platform more accessible.
What This Means for B2B Companies
If you’re a B2B company, pay attention:
- AI agents for GTM are now table stakes. Salesforce just validated the category with this acquisition. If the biggest CRM company in the world is betting this big on agentic marketing, you should be thinking about it too.
- The “build vs. buy” decision just got easier. Qualified inside Salesforce means you get a vetted, supported AI SDR agent as part of your Salesforce investment.
- The website is your AI agent’s first deployment. Don’t overthink where to start with AI agents. Your website is where buyers are already engaging. Start there.
Humans + Agents Together
Congrats to Kraig Swensrud, Sean Whiteley, and the entire Qualified team. And big congrats to Marc Benioff and the Salesforce team for a super smart deal.
This is how you accelerate an AI platform: buy something that works today, that’s already native to your ecosystem, that solves a real customer problem, and that makes your platform more accessible. Now.
In GTM, maybe the smartest M&A I’ve seen so far. At least in 2025 😉
Us at Qualifed HQ with Kraig, just the other day really. But it all seems so long ago in AI Time:
Deal expected to close in Q1 of Salesforce’s fiscal year 2027 (2026 calendar), subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory approvals.
