SoundHound AI has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire LivePerson, combining voice-based agentic AI with digital messaging capabilities to create an end-to-end omnichannel conversational AI platform. The transaction carries an equity value of $43 million, representing approximately a 22% premium over LivePerson’s 30-day volume-weighted average value, and implies a total enterprise value of approximately $250 million after debt adjustments. The deal is expected to close in the second half of 2026, subject to regulatory approvals and customary closing conditions.
The combined company will serve enterprise customers across more than 30 countries, including major global banks, airlines, automakers, and telecommunications providers. LivePerson contributes hundreds of long-standing enterprise relationships, complementing SoundHound AI’s existing footprint across restaurants, automotive, financial services, healthcare, and retail. The deal unifies SoundHound AI’s voice and agentic AI platform with LivePerson’s Conversational Cloud, which powers approximately one billion customer messages per month, creating a single integrated solution that allows enterprises to manage customer interactions across voice, text, chat, mobile, and social channels without fragmentation.
By combining datasets from billions of voice interactions and digital messages, the platform is expected to improve AI model performance, automation, and customer experience outcomes. The acquisition also enables SoundHound AI to offer voice AI capabilities to LivePerson’s digital-first customers while introducing unified omnichannel solutions to its own existing customer base, addressing what the companies describe as a longstanding enterprise demand for a single platform to manage the full lifecycle of customer conversations.
At closing, SoundHound expects to receive $74 million of LivePerson’s cash balance prior to debt repayment and plans to retire remaining debt using a mix of cash and equity, leaving the combined company debt-free with a strengthened balance sheet. SoundHound projects 2027 revenue of at least $350 million to $400 million, with at least $100 million contributed by LivePerson’s customer base. Based on existing customers alone, the combined business sees a potential revenue opportunity of $500 million through cross-selling and upselling integrated voice and digital solutions.
KEY QUOTES:
“This transformational combination brings together two complementary conversational AI pioneers. SoundHound and LivePerson will define the future of agentic customer service, helping businesses replace fragmented legacy technologies with best-in-class multimodal experiences for the AI-driven era ahead of us. Our combined customers will realize immediate value through expanded capabilities and enhanced scale. And by leveraging our unified conversational datasets, we are accelerating the evolution of our already powerful agentic AI platform to ensure impressive precision and market-leading performance.”
Keyvan Mohajer, CEO and Co-Founder, SoundHound AI
“The artificial boundaries between ‘talking’ and ‘typing’ are disappearing. Consumers expect to start a complex request over the phone and finish it seamlessly via text or web messaging, without ever repeating themselves or losing context. Historically, orchestrating a strategy across both voice and digital channels meant juggling multiple specialized vendors. This acquisition changes that dynamic. By bringing SoundHound’s cutting-edge, proprietary voice AI and LivePerson’s premier digital messaging together under one roof, we will offer the industry’s most complete portfolio of customer engagement solutions.”
John Sabino, CEO, LivePerson
