Twilio Takes Edge Over Salesforce in Customer Engagement Market
Salesforce and Twilio are two companies competing in the customer engagement market with different approaches to artificial intelligence (AI).
Salesforce has been expanding beyond traditional customer relationship management (CRM) with its Customer 360, Data 360, Slack, and Agentforce platforms.
The company's acquisition strategy includes the purchase of Slack, which strengthened its collaboration capabilities, and Informatica, which added data management capabilities. Salesforce also acquired smaller AI-focused companies like Doti AI and Spindle AI to further support its push into AI.
Salesforce's early signs are encouraging, with Agentforce annual recurring revenues surpassing $1.5 billion in the second quarter of fiscal 2027, jumping more than 240% year over year. Combined AI and Data ARR increased 210% to $3.9 billion, indicating that AI is becoming a growth engine for Salesforce.
However, Salesforce's overall growth remains slower than its AI metrics. The company's second-quarter fiscal 2027 revenues increased 11% to $11.3 billion, while Twilio's revenue growth is projected to be stronger in the near term.
Twilio provides communications and customer engagement infrastructure that businesses can use across voice, messaging, and other channels. Its new Conversations Layer brings together tools such as Conversation Memory, Conversation Orchestrator, and Conversation Intelligence.
Twilio's customers are adopting its platform at a faster rate than Salesforce, with companies like Car Finance 247 signing seven-figure deals after testing the platform.
Twilio is also winning business from AI-focused companies, including an eight-figure deal with a leading AI company during the quarter. However, Twilio faces risks such as pricing and carrier-cost pressure, while its higher valuation leaves less room for disappointing growth.