Automation Anywhere, the San Jose-based enterprise automation company, announced on October 7, 2026 that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Boost.ai, a Norwegian conversational and voice AI company, from private equity firm Nordic Capital. Terms were not disclosed.
The deal is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2026, subject to regulatory approvals and other customary conditions. It is Automation Anywhere's second AI acquisition in about a year, following its purchase of Aisera in late 2025.
The companies did not set out integration plans for Boost.ai's staff or product line. Automation Anywhere said Boost.ai's technology would extend its platform into customer service across voice, chat and digital channels.
What Boost.ai built
Boost.ai was founded in Stavanger, Norway, in 2016 by Lars Ropeid Selsås, Hadle Ropeid Selsås and Henry Vaage Iversen. It builds virtual agents that answer customer questions by chat and voice, and it has focused on regulated industries such as banking, insurance and telecommunications.
Its software combines traditional natural language understanding with newer generative and agentic AI, supports more than 36 languages, and says its security measures are aligned with GDPR and HIPAA. The company reports more than 650 deployments, over 150 million automated conversations and a resolution rate above 90% in production.
Customers named in coverage of the deal include Nordea, DNB, Credit Union of Colorado and Trading 212. Gartner has placed Boost.ai in its Magic Quadrant for Conversational AI Platforms four years running, most recently as a Leader. NKP M&A Insights reported that the company booked €25 million (about $29 million) in revenue in its 2025 financial year.
“Every enterprise runs on three kinds of work: serving customers, supporting employees, and running the business.”
Why Automation Anywhere is buying
Automation Anywhere made its name in robotic process automation, the software bots that handle repetitive back-office work, and now markets itself around AI agents. It says it has more than 4,000 customers in over 90 countries.
The company's pitch is that it can automate the work behind a customer conversation as well as the conversation itself. CEO and chairman Mihir Shukla framed the deal around the idea that enterprises run on serving customers, supporting employees and running the business. Aisera, bought last year, covered employee service desks; Boost.ai adds the customer side.
Boost.ai CEO Jerry Haywood said joining Automation Anywhere would let the company link customer conversations, including voice calls, directly to the systems and people that complete the work.
The founders and the funding
Boost.ai raised a Series A of up to $5 million in 2018, led by Alliance Venture, with the founders and employees keeping more than two-thirds of the company at that point.
In March 2021 Nordic Capital agreed to take a large stake through its Nordic Capital Evolution fund. Terms were not disclosed, though Norwegian business daily Dagens Næringsliv reported, via Unquote, that the firm would buy almost 50% of the company. At the time Boost.ai had annual recurring revenue of about NOK 100 million (roughly $12 million at the time), more than 100 employees and offices in Stavanger, Oslo, Stockholm and Santa Monica. Finstart Nordic and Alliance Venture stayed on as investors alongside Nordic Capital.
Under Nordic Capital the company expanded from the Nordics into the rest of Europe and North America. NKP M&A Insights reported in January 2026 that Nordic Capital was working with Santander on a possible sale. Santander advised Boost.ai on the deal, while BofA Securities and Winston Taylor advised Automation Anywhere.
A busy market for voice AI
Voice agents have become one of the most contested areas of enterprise AI as companies try to automate call centres. SiliconANGLE cited an Astute Analytica estimate valuing the AI voice agent market at $3 billion in 2025 and projecting $45.1 billion by 2035.
Boost.ai's long record in banks and insurers is what Automation Anywhere is paying for. Those customers tend to move slowly on vendors and demand strict compliance, which makes an established supplier with existing deployments hard to replicate quickly.
