As every major tech company grapples to claim a stake in the ever-evolving AI landscape, it's increasingly becoming difficult to determine who will be the winner (or if there will be one anyway).
So far, Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic have shown great promise in the space. Even Apple with its delayed strategy briefly scaled to the top, becoming the world's most valuable company ahead of Microsoft and NVIDIA with over $3 trillion in market valuation.
Over the past few months, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has shared interesting insights about Microsoft's AI efforts. The executive claimed Microsoft has done a"tremendous disservice" to the industry while referring to Copilot as the new Microsoft Clippy, further suggesting it doesn't work or deliver value.
More recently, Salesforce's CEO was recently featured in an interview with Motley Fool host Dylan Lewis, discussing Agentic AI and the company's next chapter. The interview kicked off with Benioff indicating that Agentforce isn't the company's "first AI rodeo."
According to Benioff:
"We've been doing AI for more than a decade at Salesforce, predictive AI, machine learning, machine intelligence. Our Einstein platform is probably the largest most important enterprise platform for AI in the world. We deliver about a trillion enterprise AI transactions every single week. The generative revolution has just been incredible. What we've seen happening with these large language models over the last two years is really astonishing."
Salesforce touts AI lead over Microsoft
As you'd expect, the executive didn't pull any punches to criticize Microsoft's AI efforts. "But I think for a lot of our customers, they've been very disappointed with a lot of the solutions that have been given them or even shoved at them," Benioff added. "Even Microsoft has really disappointed so many of our customers with what they call Copilot."
The executive outlined that the company is following a different approach with Agentforce. He further indicated that it helps develop the largest and most important transformation of the entire tech industry — touting it as the digital labor revolution.
Salesforce's AI efforts are seemingly turning the company into a profitable venture:
"We've never seen a product or technology take off at this level. We just reported our quarterly results. As you know, we just had our first $10 billion quarter. We're the second largest software company in the world behind Microsoft, and the fastest-growing product that we have in our product line is Agentforce. Now, we probably did about 5,000 different types of Agentforce transactions in the quarter, 3,000 of which were paid transactions, and we did about nine digits in total contract value in Agentforce."
The executive outlined how Agentforce is gaining broad adoption across the world. It supports consumers by making work easier as they navigate the internet, researching and shopping for stuff.
Salesforce CEO admits they are not the only ones exploring new and innovative feats in the AI space. However, the executive says Salesforce stands out with its products, claiming it has transformed and changed the conversation.
As you can see that before it was about a Copilot and they repackage and resell ChatGPT as their AI solution. They don't really make one yet. They're trying to make one. They're basically an OpenAI reseller. I think the problem is that for a lot of the customers, they've had to DIY that into what is a complex enterprise architecture, and it has not exactly worked.
Salesforce CEO, Marc Benioff
Benioff suggested Microsoft was in "panic mode" after announcing its plan to add support for creating autonomous agents to Copilot Studio, potentially giving Salesforce's Agentforce a run for its money following Benioff's comments. He claimed Copilot is a flop because Microsoft lacks the data to create real corporate intelligence while touting Agentforce's excellence in the field.
Aside from Salesforce's AI efforts, Benioff also commented about the company's conundrum about hiring software engineers in 2025. While the executive didn't outrightly disclose the company's plans to replace software engineers with AI, he admitted that the technology helped enhance productivity at work and boosted revenue.
Microsoft Chief Communication Officer Frank X. Shaw recently addressed Benioff's jabs toward the software giant, claiming they are "all about marketing, less about truth or substance." Shaw further claimed that Marc doesn't know what he's talking about.
The executive echoed Microsoft CVP of Business & Industry Charles Lamanna's sentiments about the company's success in the AI landscape/ For context, over "100,000 organizations" had used Copilot Studio to create AI agents by October 2024.
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