IBM has agreed to acquire Confluent in a transaction valuing the data streaming company at $11 billion, marking one of IBM’s most significant deals in recent years as it expands its position in hybrid cloud, enterprise AI, and real-time data infrastructure.
The agreement calls for IBM to purchase all issued and outstanding shares of Confluent for $31 per share in cash, with the transaction expected to close by mid-2026 pending shareholder and regulatory approvals. Confluent shareholders representing about 62 percent of voting power have already signed voting agreements in favor of the acquisition.
IBM framed the deal as a strategic expansion of its enterprise AI capabilities at a time when organizations are rapidly deploying generative and agentic AI systems that depend on clean, connected, real-time data. Confluent, founded on Apache Kafka, provides data streaming, governance, and processing tools used by more than 6,500 clients, including over 40 percent of the Fortune 500. The company’s total addressable market has doubled to $100 billion since 2021, reflecting increasing demand for real-time, event-driven architectures.
The acquisition will fold Confluent’s product suite into IBM’s broader portfolio spanning AI, automation, consulting, and data management. IBM expects the deal to drive substantial product synergies, accelerate revenue growth through its global go-to-market engin,e and generate operational efficiencies as Confluent scales within IBM. Financially, IBM anticipates the deal will be accretive to adjusted EBITDA in the first full year and to free cash flow in the second year after the close.
Confluent offers multiple deployment models, including its fully managed Confluent Cloud, enterprise-grade Confluent Platform, WarpStream for hybrid environments, and Confluent Private Cloud for managed service experiences in private infrastructure. IBM signaled that unifying these capabilities with its AI infrastructure is intended to create a foundational smart data platform for enterprises modernizing legacy data systems and building AI native applications.
Both boards have approved the acquisition, which remains subject to final shareholder and regulatory approvals. Confluent’s largest investors have agreed to support the transaction, reducing the uncertainty typically associated with shareholder votes. IBM plans to fund the purchase with cash on hand.
The companies emphasized that the rise of generative and agentic AI, along with the projected creation of more than one billion new logical applications by 2028, is increasing the need for resilient real-time data movement across public clouds, private clouds, and on-premises systems. By integrating Confluent’s data streaming fabric with IBM’s AI and automation stack, the combined organization intends to provide enterprises with a comprehensive data layer built for the next era of distributed AI applications.
KEY QUOTES:
“IBM and Confluent together will enable enterprises to deploy generative and agentic AI better and faster by providing trusted communication and data flow between environments, applications and APIs. Data is spread across public and private clouds, datacenters and countless technology providers. With the acquisition of Confluent, IBM will provide the smart data platform for enterprise IT, purpose-built for AI.”
Arvind Krishna, Chairman, President And Chief Executive Officer, IBM
“Since its founding, Confluent has helped organizations unlock the full potential of their data, driving innovation in an increasingly complex IT landscape. We are extremely proud of the work we’ve done in providing clients with a real-time data streaming platform for the next era of technology, including generative and agentic AI.”
“We are excited by the potential to join IBM and to accelerate our strategy with IBM’s go-to-market expertise, global scale and extensive portfolio. I look forward to the future we will build together as Confluent becomes part of IBM.”
Jay Kreps, Chief Executive Officer And Co-Founder, Confluent
