Enterprise data management company Informatica Inc. reported a strong third quarter for 2025, with cloud subscription revenue rising 31% over the same period last year and overall revenue slightly surpassing analyst expectations.

The company also detailed ongoing efforts to expand its artificial intelligence offerings and said its pending acquisition by Salesforce Inc. is on track.

Total revenue for the quarter ended September 30 was $439.2 million, up 3.9% from the same quarter last year. Earnings per share of 28 cents were below the 31 cents to 36 cents consensus estimates.

Cloud subscription annual recurring revenue reached $968.6 million, up 29.5% year-over-year. Informatica Chief Executive Amit Walia (pictured) said the company is on target to reach its ARR goal of $1 billion. “It’s at 969 million as we speak,” he said in an interview with SiliconANGLE.

The company processed 143.3 trillion cloud transactions per month during the quarter, a 41% increase year-over-year. Informatica’s cloud subscription net retention rate, a measure of a company’s ability to grow revenue from its existing customer base, stood at 120%, indicating strong customer loyalty.

Walia attributed Informatica’s cloud growth to increasing demand for data foundations that support agentic artificial intelligence systems, which are workflows that rely on autonomous or semi-autonomous software agents. “Customers absolutely realize they have to get a data foundation in order,” he said, noting that Informatica’s Intelligent Data Management Cloud platform and its AI engine, Claire, are well-positioned to provide that foundation.

Trifecta of drivers

Walia outlined a “trifecta” of drivers behind the company’s momentum: customers modernizing legacy infrastructure, growing interest in agentic AI and strong partnerships with hyperscalers and enterprise software vendors. “All of this is basically being done by IDMC and Claire,” he said.

He characterized customer interest in agentic AI as high but still exploratory. Projects are “very, very early,” he said. “Many customers don’t even know what an agentic architecture means or where to begin.”

Nevertheless, most enterprise customers are forging ahead with limited use cases, such as customer service. “There’s not a customer I’ve met who has said, ‘I’m not doing it, or I will not do it,’” Walia said.

Although much of the industry’s attention has turned to AI over the past two years, Walia said migration to the cloud hasn’t slowed. “There is no AI without cloud,” he said. He noted, however, that enterprises are becoming more sophisticated in their cloud options and are deploying AI across a broader range of cloud architectures, including private clouds and purpose-built environments.

“They’re saying they are not going to put everything in one large language model,” he said. “They are diversifying their [large language model] footprint.”

The trend toward repatriating cloud workloads to on-premises infrastructure, which gained some momentum two years ago, has faded, the CEO said. “That’s tapered off,” Walia said, pointing to Informatica’s usage-based pricing model as an example of evolving pricing models. “Customers have full control. They are paying as they consume.”

Informatica’s maintenance and professional services revenue, which largely derives from software licenses, fell 12% to $118,500 in the quarter.

The push toward AI is also accelerating legacy modernization, Walia said. “On-premises is on its last legs in a way,” he said,

The earnings release is largely an academic exercise given Salesforce Inc.’s plans to acquire Informatica for $8 billion. The deal is expected to close in early 2026 and “we feel pretty good about it,” Walia said. “So far, fingers crossed, we haven’t had any challenges or stumbling blocks.”

Customers are mostly concerned about continuity following the sale. “They want to make sure that the roadmap or the Informatica that they bet on does not change,” Walia said. “We’ve said we are the Switzerland of data at scale, and that will not change.”

Photo: SiliconANGLE