One year on from Salesforce's acquisition of Qualified — what changed for AI-agent buyers, what didn't, and what the deal tells us about the AI agent category trajectory through 2027.
7 alternatives to Piper Agent for buyers who want AI agents without Salesforce lock-in. Twig leads the customer-support category; named alternatives for sales-SDR use cases included for completeness.
Piper is Qualified's AI SDR agent (sales qualification, meeting booking), acquired by Salesforce in 2025. Twig is autonomous customer support — a different category. Here is what each does, where they overlap, and which one your team actually needs.
Qualified is the Salesforce-owned conversational marketing platform behind Piper Agent. Twig is the independent autonomous customer support agent. Different jobs, different ownership, different lock-in profiles. See the full comparison.
Salesforce acquired Qualified — the parent of Piper Agent — in 2025. Here is what the deal means for AI-agent buyers, the historical pattern of Salesforce acquisitions, and how to keep your customer-support AI layer CRM-agnostic.