Salesforce CEO Slams Microsoft Copilot Again: Disappointing and Low Customer Adoption Rate

Microsoft's performance in the artificial intelligence sector has sparked widespread disappointment. Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, candidly shared this perspective during a recent episode of The Bartlett Show. He remarked, "When we examine Copilot and its capabilities today, it is clear that Microsoft merely repackaged OpenAI's technology and embedded it into Excel."

Benioff elaborated that based on feedback from customers interacting with Copilot AI, they did not experience any significant changes. He even stated that customers "hardly" use Copilot, adding that this was true even when they lacked access to ChatGPT or similar alternatives.

This is not the first time Marc Benioff has criticized Microsoft's AI initiatives and the Copilot project. As early as October 2024, he claimed that Microsoft's AI efforts had caused "significant harm" to the entire industry, comparing Copilot to the new version of Microsoft Clippy, implying it was impractical or lacked value. Interestingly, Microsoft subsequently announced plans to add support for creating autonomous agents within Copilot Studio, a move that could potentially compete with Salesforce's Agentforce.

Benioff proudly declared that Salesforce is the world's largest AI enterprise supplier, processing trillions of AI transactions weekly. He emphasized that their Agentforce product sets the standard for what AI should be and expressed satisfaction with positive customer feedback: "It must be magic; the feedback from my customers is truly astonishing."

He further suggested that Microsoft's rebranding of Copilot as "agents" revealed signs of panic and insisted that Copilot was a failure. He argued that Microsoft lacked the necessary data, metadata, and enterprise security models required for genuine business intelligence, which led to inaccuracies in Copilot, data breaches, and forced customers to build their own language models (LLMs). He mockingly referred to Copilot as "Clippy 2.0" and questioned its market demand.

If internal reports about Microsoft's struggles with AI and Copilot are accurate, then Benioff's criticisms may have merit. A critical report indicated that Microsoft relies on third-party vendors to make Copilot operational within Microsoft 365 applications. An internal employee admitted, "There is a gap between our ambitious vision and the actual user experience. We call it growing pains, building the plane while flying."

Interestingly, a Microsoft executive described most Copilot AI tools as "all show and no substance," highlighting their functional limitations. Another employee revealed issues with Copilot concerning security and privacy, noting that the tool was "very good at sharing information that customers did not intend to share or believed had been provided to employees, such as salary details." More concerning, employees indicated that resolving these issues would take years.

However, Microsoft has not slowed down its AI development pace. Another report suggests that employees in the AI department earn significantly higher salaries than those in Azure and Cloud divisions. It is reported that when evaluating employee performance and determining bonuses to retain irreplaceable staff, special consideration is given to contributions in AI.