SoundHound AI buys LivePerson for $43 million, builds enterprise customer base

SoundHound AI, which focuses on conversational AI, said it has acquired LivePerson in a deal valued at $43 million, a slight premium to LivePerson's $40 million market cap.

With the deal, SoundHound AI acquires a base of legacy LivePerson enterprise customers that it can upsell. LivePerson was hampered by debt that SoundHound expects to retire at a significant discount. The enterprise value of the deal, including debt is $250 million. SoundHound AI said it paid a 22% premium over LivePerson’s volume-weighted 30-day average value.

The move is notable since SoundHound AI, which has real traction, has gone dumpster diving to acquire an enterprise customer base and grow revenue. SoundHound AI's move to acquire LivePerson could lead to similar deals for zombie software providers that have a solid customer base but little to know growth.

According to SoundHound AI, the combined company will combine SoundHound's voice and AI agent platform with LivePerson's digital engagement suite. The combined company will have 12 of the 15 top global banks, 4 of 5 global airlines and 4 of the 5 top automakers. Simply put, the theory is that SoundHound AI has the technology and LivePerson has the enterprise relationships.

Keyvan Mohajer, CEO of SoundHound AI, said the products from the combined company are complementary and can "define the future of agentic customer service." The combined company will feature:

• A unified voice and digital platform.
• AI capabilities for the LivePerson customer base.
• Diversification across industries.
• More scale and a better balance sheet.
• Customer interaction data to power AI models.

SoundHound AI expects its 2027 revenue to be $350 million to $400 million with at least $100 million in revenue from LivePerson's legacy customer base.

In 2025, SoundHound AI reported a net loss of $14 million on revenue of $169 million.

LivePerson’s fourth quarter was ahead of guidance, but the company’s is struggling to retain revenue. LivePerson was projecting revenue of $195 million to $205 million for 2026.

SoundHound AI's plan is to offer its voice AI to LivePerson customers and also add LivePerson's omnichannel voice software to its own customer base. SoundHound AI said the combined company is expected to reach $500 million in revenue based on the existing customer base.