You Won’t Believe What Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff Said About Microsoft’s Copilot Artificial Intelligence (AI) Assistant

Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is an early winner of the rapid adoption of artificial intelligence (AI). The company was an early investor in ChatGPT maker OpenAI and acted quickly to capitalize on the breakout potential of generative AI.

The result of those efforts is Copilot, Microsoft’s suite of AI-powered digital assistants, and its user base is growing like wildfire. The company recently reported that “60% of the Fortune 500 have adopted Copilots, and 65% are using Azure OpenAI Service.” That would seem to suggest that Copilot has been wildly successful — but not everyone is convinced.

A blast from the past

At the Point of sale (NYSE: CRM) At Dreamforce’s annual user conference this week, CEO Marc Benioff had some pointed words about Microsoft’s flagship AI assistant: “Microsoft Copilot is essentially the new Microsoft Clippy, where customers haven’t gotten any value out of it.” Of the recent rush to develop the large language models (LLMs) that underpin generative AI: “It’s like we’re selling science projects to companies and they’re fed up with it.”

Benioff was referring to the much-discussed animated paperclip that Microsoft unveiled as part of Office 96. The “smart” digital helper was designed to assist with certain tasks, but was seen as more of an annoyance and reviled by users. As such, Benioff’s comments had a mocking tone.

The comments came as Benioff was touting the utility of Salesforce Agentforce, a suite of AI “agents” designed to make workers more productive by streamlining tasks across service, sales, commerce and marketing, “driving unprecedented efficiencies.” If that sounds a lot like what Copilot does, that’s because it is.

So what does this mean for Microsoft investors? In a word: nothing. It’s clear that Benioff has an ulterior motive for promoting Salesforce’s own AI tools.

Despite his disparaging remarks, customers continue to embrace Copilot at a rapid pace, and Microsoft has a laundry list of user testimonials describing how they use Copilot to save time and money. Salesforce still has to prove the value of its offering.

Oh, and at 37 times earnings, Microsoft shares are cheaper.

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Danny Vena has positions in Microsoft. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Microsoft and Salesforce. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

You Won’t Believe What Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff Said About Microsoft’s Copilot Artificial Intelligence (AI) Assistant originally published by The Motley Fool