Marc Benioff has once again criticized Microsoft’s Copilot.
In a post on X, the Salesforce CEO took Microsoft Copilot to task for being inaccurate, "spilling data everywhere", and requiring users to build their own custom LLMs.
In arguably the most stinging barb of all, Benioff signed off his post by claiming that "Copilot is more like Clippy 2.0," a reference to Clippit, Microsoft’s Word and Office conversational assistant from the 1990s and early 2000s that was viewed as more of a distraction than a help.
When you look at how Copilot has been delivered to customers, it’s disappointing. It just doesn’t work, and it doesn’t deliver any level of accuracy. Gartner says it’s spilling data everywhere, and customers are left cleaning up the mess. To add insult to injury, customers are… pic.twitter.com/ex11bwEA3a
— Marc Benioff (@Benioff) October 17, 2024
The latest dig follows similar remarks made during a Salesforce earnings call back in August, where Benioff said that "so many customers" were "disappointed" in Microsoft Copilot.
While there has been no official response from Microsoft to Benioff’s latest low blow, after the earnings call remarks, Jared Spataro, Microsoft’s Corporate VP for AI at Work, rubbished the comments, stating:
Last quarter alone, we saw a customer increase of over 60 percent, and daily users have more than doubled – a clear indicator of Copilot’s value in the market.
So, what exactly is it about the Microsoft Copilot that seems to boil Benioff’s blood?
Bad Blood
Move over Ali-Frazer; someone tell Bette and Joan that they’re old news; and while you're at it, let Drake and Kendrick know there's a new beef in town.
Ok, so Salesforce and Microsoft might not be in the main event at Madison Square Garden, starring in Hollywood blockbusters, or topping the charts anytime soon, but the rivalry certainly seems to be intensifying.
While it is not surprising to hear rival companies knocking one another from time to time, Benioff’s second shot at Microsoft’s Copilot in the space of three months, arguably seems more calculated.
The most apparent reason for Benioff’s criticism is the recent release of Salesforce’s own AI agents through its Agentforce solution.
As one of the marquee pre-event announcements for Salesforce’s Dreamforce 2024, the new tool is presented as a suite of autonomous AI agents aimed at boosting employee productivity by handling tasks across service, sales, marketing, and commerce.
The AI agents can analyze data, make decisions, and perform tasks such as responding to customer inquiries, qualifying sales leads, and optimizing marketing campaigns.
As contestably the biggest competitor to one of his company’s major recent announcements, Benioff’s comments about Microsoft Copilot could well be a deliberate strategy to generate as much attention as possible for Agentforce.
On a similar note, Benioff may believe that it behooves Salesforce for him to point out areas where, in his opinion, Agentforce has an advantage over Microsoft Copilot, such as its autonomous capabilities.
By specifically outlining the need for Microsoft Copilot users to customize their own LLMs, the Salesforce CEO is emphasizing the difference between the two companies’ generative AI (GenAI) strategies.
While Microsoft Copilot always requires a human in the loop, Salesforce can work autonomously with human oversight as part of the vendor’s "human at the helm" approach.
