Salesforce CEO Slams Microsoft's 'Disappointing' AI Offering
In Davos, Switzerland, Salesforce co-founder and CEO Marc Benioff criticized Microsoft's AI rival, Copilot. He stated that Copilot was simply "a repackaged ChatGPT," highlighting Microsoft's alleged shortcomings in the AI business.
This remark follows a recent statement by Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who downplayed the significance of business applications. Nadella suggested that these applications would "collapse" in the "agent era" and described them as "CRUD databases with a bunch of business logic."
A Salesforce spokesperson declined to comment on Benioff's remarks.
Despite the criticism, Salesforce's AI bots, which can answer customer questions autonomously, are gaining traction. The company closed 200 Agentforce deals in Q3, including with FedEx, IBM, and Accenture.
Benioff declined to provide an updated figure on Agentforce deals but stated that consumption has been strong, with the company charging $2 per conversation.
Salesforce's stock has surged over 25% since the announcement of Agentforce solutions at Dreamforce. However, some analysts remain skeptical. Guggenheim analyst John DiFucci downgraded Salesforce to Sell, citing concerns about the company's ability to monetize Agentforce effectively.
DiFucci believes Salesforce lacks the necessary assets and expertise to provide AI solutions that require dynamic data with rich context, as opposed to the static data Salesforce holds.