Salesforce says the acquisition will help the San Francisco software company, which provides tools to help businesses manage sales and customer data, ramp up its AI efforts.

Salesforce said on Tuesday it would buy Informatica for about $8 billion, betting on the data management platform to sharpen its competitive edge in the booming artificial intelligence market. The cloud-software giant is returning to big-ticket M&A after years on the sidelines,

Informatica shares gained Tuesday as the artificial intelligence (AI)-based data management software provider finally agreed to be purchased by Salesforce after long negotiations between the tech firms.