News / Artificial Intelligence

AI Agents Battle: Marc Benioff Compares Microsoft’s Copilot to Clippy 2.0

By Ben McCarthy

The battle for AI supremacy is starting to heat up, as companies across the technology ecosystems launch their 3rd iteration of AI – the first being predictive, then generative, and now agents.

Of course, this includes Agentforce by Salesforce and ServiceNow Agents, and now Microsoft, who have announced that it will add ten AI agents to its Copilot suite. 

Who Will Have the First Autonomous Agent?

It’s safe to say that Artificial Intelligence has been a bit of a rollercoaster. The technology world is hedging huge bets on this technology, with 40% of all VC investments flowing into GenAI startups. This is also reflected by Nvidia hitting a new all-time high to become the second most valuable company in the world. 

But it’s also safe to say that these investments haven’t paid the dividends we might have expected a couple of years ago. Although chatter of an AI bubble earlier in the year has fallen silent as stocks continue to rally, companies will want their ROI out of AI, and they will want it fast. 

Salesforce’s Agentforce release has created a huge buzz in the Salesforce ecosystem since its announcement at Dreamforce ‘24, and I feel an invigorated sense of optimism flowing through the community. As Marc Benioff put it, agents are “what AI was meant to be”.

But as more technology giants release their version of agents, it seems the race is on for companies to crack the first fully autonomous agent. Salesforce claims that Agentforce can solve up to 90% of customer queries autonomously, potentially solving a gigantic pain point for both companies and their customers. 

Agentforce is being touted as the easy-to-setup, clicks-not-code, Agent of the future. If this turns out to be true once Agentforce is released under GA (Generally Available) then Salesforce could be laughing its way to the bank – Wall Street certainly seems to think so, anyway.

In addition, Agentforce is being included as part of Salesforce Foundations, which under current understandings and announcements at Dreamforce, means that Agentforce should have a freemium offering for all Enterprise licenses and above. 

Microsoft vs. Salesforce

There are plenty of companies that want to beat Salesforce to the number one spot, and who are also better than Microsoft. The company was one of the first to partner with OpenAI and invest $13B into the technology – an announcement that I’m sure made many of Microsoft’s competitors quake in their boots. However, the “best bromance in tech” may not be as solid as it seems. According to The New York Times, their partnership might be fraying, with OpenAI reportedly trying to renegotiate its deal with Microsoft.

Yesterday, however, Microsoft launched their own version of Agentforce in a very similar fashion. Copilot Studio allows users to build custom agents. It includes ten autonomous agents designed for pre-built tasks like sales qualification, supplier communications, customer intent analysis, and customer knowledge management.

“We have just found places where people spend tons of time and tons of money. They tend to be tasks and processes that they wish they didn’t have to do, but they have to do over and over again. There’s a high yield if we can essentially automate that.” Jared Spataro, CMO, Microsoft

This sums up both Microsoft and Salesforce’s goals with this latest wave of AI. As with any hypercompetitive rollout of cutting-edge technology, a fair share of mudslinging is inevitable, and Marc Benioff has been front and center. 

He believes that Microsoft has been overhyping its Copilot product, setting unrealistic customer expectations about its capabilities while also failing to deliver the expected level of accuracy. He summarizes this in possibly the biggest burn possible in the age of AI, comparing Microsoft’s Copilot to Clippy 2.0.

Although I’m not a big Copilot user, this has been my overall sentiment about GenAI 1.0 over the past couple of years. It’s way too early to be rolling out some of this technology when proper use cases have not been fleshed out yet, and the tech hasn’t been properly integrated into users’ daily workflows. 

Salesforce has also had its own Copilot products launched for around a year now, and adoption is pretty low. By Salesforce’s own admission, they only have 122K Prompts executed per week across their customer base. 

But Marc Benioff isn’t alone with his thoughts on Microsoft, a CIO of a large Pharma company canceled their Copilot licenses after citing “high cost and low value.”

“I don’t think Copilot will be around. I don’t think customers will use it, and I think that we will see the transformation of enterprises with agents, and Agentforce will be the number one supplier.” Marc Benioff, CEO, Salesforce

Summary

Gartner has conducted extensive research into generative AI projects, making some bold claims about their future. For example, by 2025, 90% of enterprise AI projects will face slowdowns as costs begin to outweigh the value they deliver. 

Earlier this year, Gartner also reported that only 24% of Microsoft Copilot users were planning a large-scale rollout – reflecting some hesitation in the market.

As with any groundbreaking innovation, the concept of second-mover advantage is always in play. Consider historical examples like MySpace vs. Facebook or Google vs. AltaVista—where second movers learned from the first movers’ missteps and ultimately dominated the market.

However, the AI arms race is slightly different. Companies are iterating rapidly, seeking the perfect balance between high license costs and tangible value. While this balancing act is ongoing, it’s clear that AI Agents – adaptive tools designed to assist and automate – will likely fill this value gap, offering the solution enterprises need to unlock sustainable value from AI technologies.

READ MORE: Salesforce vs. Microsoft vs. ServiceNow: The Battle of the AI Agents

The Author

Ben McCarthy

Ben is the Founder of Salesforce Ben. He also works as a Non-Exec Director & Advisor for various companies within the Salesforce Ecosystem.

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