Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has been highly critical of Microsoft's AI efforts this month, even going on a podcast to call Copilot “disappointing.” Now the drama continues as Benioff criticizes Microsoft's artificial intelligence for businesses.
On Monday, Microsoft announced new AI agents that can act on behalf of a company for sales, finance and customer service tasks. But based on Benioff's tweet the next day, he still thinks Salesforce Can Beat Microsoft in AI.
The CEO of Salesforce wrote in a Tuesday's post on X that Microsoft presenting its Copilot AI as “agents” signaled “panic mode.”
“Let's be real – Copilot is a failure because Microsoft lacks the data, metadata and enterprise security models to create true enterprise intelligence,” Benioff wrote. “This is why Copilot is inaccurate, leaks corporate data, and forces clients to build their own LLMs. Clippy 2.0, anyone?” Clippy was the office assistant who Microsoft withdrew in 2007.
Benioff then pushed Salesforce's Agentforce, a group of AI agents tailored for sales, marketing and customer service tasks, as an example of “what AI should be.”
Microsoft Rebrands Copilot as 'Agents'? This is the way to panic. Let's be real – Copilot is a failure because Microsoft lacks the data, metadata, and enterprise security models to create true enterprise intelligence. This is why Copilot is inaccurate, leaks corporate data and forces… pic.twitter.com/fBRFoVhWOG
– Marc Benioff (@Benioff) October 22, 2024
Has Copilot leaked private information or been inaccurate?
In August, Microsoft fixed a bug in Copilot that could have leaked confidential information. Users have commented on the inaccuracies with Copilot, but this isn't a problem isolated to Microsoft's AI — big language models across the board fight with precision.
Benioff's comments attempt to differentiate Salesforce's AI business offerings from Microsoft's by repeating what he has said before. Earlier this month, on an episode of Masters of Scale The Quick Response PodcastBenioff said Microsoft has done “a tremendous disservice” to the AI industry by offering AI that “doesn't work.”
Benioff then drew a comparison between Copilot and Clippy and said Copilot didn't have staying power.
Microsoft, meanwhile, says that CLIENTS both McKinsey & Company and Thomson Reuters are creating AI agents with its technology.
Related: Can anyone beat Microsoft in AI? Salesforce's CEO thinks his company can.