Salesforce today announced a significant update to its foundational data platform, unveiling a unified data engine that brings together Data 360, Informatica, and MuleSoft. The goal? To give enterprise AI systems the trusted context they need to stop hallucinating and start reasoning — a shift with significant implications for marketers.
AI hallucinations are a significant barrier to enterprise use of AI. According to Salesforce, over 80% of enterprise AI projects never make it past the demo stage because the systems aren’t grounded in the company’s data, definitions and processes. Without that context, agents misinterpret signals like “customer ID,” “order status” or “return request,” leading to flawed insights or incorrect actions.
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“AI without context is just guessing, or hallucinating,” said Rahul Auradkar, Salesforce’s EVP and GM, Data 360. “By combining Informatica’s metadata with MuleSoft’s real-time signals, we replace guessing with reasoning. We are giving AI the grounding it needs to operate safely — ensuring that when an agent acts, it does so with the full weight of enterprise truth behind it.”
Building context across three layers
Salesforce’s new unified data engine is built on three pillars:
1. Enterprise understanding through metadata: Data 360 now includes Informatica’s master data management (MDM) capabilities, covering entities like products, suppliers and assets. That gives agents a shared vocabulary and understanding, so when an AI model sees “SKU-123,” it knows it’s the same as “Part A” in another system. The integration also includes data lineage features, letting AI verify the freshness and trustworthiness of data. All that, when combined with a comprehensive data catalog that spans on-prem, cloud and legacy systems, provides a deep map of the organization’s data landscape.
2. Real-time awareness via MuleSoft: MuleSoft feeds live operational signals into the system — everything from shipment delays to inventory changes to customer actions. AI agents can then act on the current state of the business, not yesterday’s snapshot.
3. Unified context with zero-copy architecture: Data 360 becomes the harmonized memory layer, merging historical context from Informatica and real-time signals from MuleSoft. This context is shared across AI agents using a zero-copy approach, meaning data is accessed but not duplicated, reducing storage costs and latency.
This new data layer is the foundation for Salesforce’s broader Agentforce 360 platform — a four-layer architecture designed to support enterprise-grade AI agents. If everything works as promised, With this AI agents handling workflows such as refunds, order adjustments or personalization can operate with the same clarity as seasoned employees.
What matters to marketers
For marketers, this isn’t just a back-end IT story. Unified, trusted data is the key to making AI agents genuinely useful across campaigns, journeys and customer interactions. With access to real-time status, clean definitions, and verified customer records, marketing agents can recommend content, adjust targeting, and personalize messages without drifting off course.
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It also lays the groundwork for more confident and transparent AI governance — a critical step as compliance requirements tighten and customers demand clarity around how their data is used.
Salesforce’s new data engine is available today as part of Data 360, Informatica, MuleSoft, and the Agentforce 360 platform. For companies serious about deploying AI at scale, this might be one of the most critical technical updates of the year — not because it’s trendy, but because it solves the most persistent problem in enterprise AI: lack of context.
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