IBM to Buy Confluent, Add Real Time Data Platform for AI

IBM announced on December 8, 2025 that it will acquire Confluent, the company built around the Apache Kafka real time data streaming platform, in a cash transaction valued at about 11 billion dollars, or roughly 31 dollars per share. The boards of both companies have approved the deal, which IBM said will be financed with available cash and is expected to close by mid 2026 subject to regulatory and shareholder approvals.

Confluent provides technology that lets organizations collect and move event by event data in real time across on prem and cloud environments. IBM said the acquisition will strengthen its hybrid cloud and AI software stack by adding Confluent’s streaming data capabilities, enabling enterprises to move, govern and prepare streaming data for generative and agentic AI workloads. The company framed the combined offering as a "smart data platform" intended to accelerate enterprise AI deployments.

Investors reacted quickly to the news. Confluent shares jumped sharply on the announcement, reflecting investor enthusiasm for the strategic fit with large enterprise buyers of cloud and AI services. IBM said the transaction is expected to be accretive to adjusted EBITDA in the first full year after close, and accretive to free cash flow in the second year.

Analysts said the deal addresses a growing industry need for reliable, governed pipelines that feed AI models with timely data. As organizations move beyond batch based analytics to applications that require continuous updates, the capacity to stream, enrich and secure data in motion becomes central to AI performance and compliance. Confluent’s tooling around Kafka has become a de facto standard for many sectors that need event driven architectures, including financial services, retail and logistics.

The acquisition also signals continued consolidation in enterprise software as major vendors seek to assemble end to end stacks that combine cloud infrastructure, data platforms and AI services. For IBM, which has repositioned itself in recent years around hybrid cloud and generative AI, the integration of Confluent offers a way to tie streaming data more tightly to model training and inference workflows across multicloud environments.

Regulatory review remains an open question. Large technology deals have faced increased scrutiny in recent years as authorities in the United States and other jurisdictions weigh impacts on competition, data governance and national security. IBM and Confluent must still secure approvals from regulators and from Confluent shareholders before the transaction can close.

If completed, the deal will make Confluent part of IBM’s software portfolio and give enterprises another route for bringing constant streams of data into AI systems. IBM’s promise of early accretion to profitability suggests the company expects operational synergies, though integration of complex enterprise software and open source based ecosystems will be a key test for the combined businesses in the months ahead.