Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff minced no words when comparing his company’s AI agents to Microsoft’s Copilot, saying customers are disappointed with the latter.

Microsoft has invested billions in OpenAI, using its ChatGPT models as the basis for its Copilot AI. The company has integrated Copilot across its entire range of products, evening unveiling a line of PCs purpose-built to utilize the AI assistant.

Hear Salesforce’s Marc Benioff call out customer frustration with Microsoft Copilot!

Despite Microsoft’s investment, Benioff says Copilot has been a major disappointment to most customers. Benioff made the comments during the company’s most recent earnings call (courtesy of The Motley Fool), in which he compared Copilot to the Agentforce AI agents Salesforce recently unveiled.

But we’re seeing that breakthrough occur because, with our new Agentforce platform, we’re going to make a quantum leap for in AI, and that’s why it wants you all at Dreamforce because I want you to have your hands on this technology to really understand this. This is not copilots. So, many customers are so disappointed in what they bought from Microsoft Copilots because they’re not getting the accuracy and the response that they want. Microsoft has disappointed so many customers with AI.

Benioff made special mention of customers’ expectation, when it comes to training models, calling out Microsoft for convincing customers to accept a DIY experience, instead of providing the fully integrated platform Salesforce provides.

The last point is this, these customers they’re still going to build models, but it’s in our platform.

They’re still going to fine-tune those models in our platform. They’re going to still use our AI studios and build their own prompts in our platform there — all of it runs in our platform, and that’s how they deliver this incredible capability. And if you’ve seen some of the architecture and graphics and how I’ve changed the architecture of the — and how we talk about the company, it’s really about in this one, two, three approach, the apps, the data and the agents, but it’s all AI-centric. It’s all — and it’s not — you’re not going to have to DIY.

And it just — it is driving me a little crazy, as you probably heard, like when I meet with these customers and they think I need to build my own model, I have to train my own model after retrain, and they are spending a lot of money on this craziness and it’s not working. So, it is a disappointment that Microsoft has convinced so many customers and others to move some of these model companies who are just regulated at this point to be in commodities that they have to be customized for stuff. It’s not true. It can be done in a platform approach and it’s better, easier, lower cost, and we’re — this technology will — we are proving it, and we’ll show it.

Benioff’s statements are an interesting indictment of what is one of the industry’s leading AI platforms, although it seems even Microsoft may be aware that Copilot doesn’t always provide the accuracy customers want. In fact, the company even warns customers not to rely on Copilot for professional advice.

Assistive AI. AI services are not designed, intended, or to be used as substitutes for professional advice.

In contrast, as Benioff points out, Salesforce designed Agentforce agents to act with level of autonomy that appears to be lacking in Copilot.

“Agentforce represents the Third Wave of AI—advancing beyond copilots to a new era of highly accurate, low-hallucination intelligent agents that actively drive customer success. Unlike other platforms, Agentforce is a revolutionary and trusted solution that seamlessly integrates AI across every workflow, embedding itself deeply into the heart of the customer journey. This means anticipating needs, strengthening relationships, driving growth, and taking proactive action at every touchpoint,” Benioff said when unveiling Agentforce. “While others require you to DIY your AI, Agentforce offers a fully tailored, enterprise-ready platform designed for immediate impact and scalability. With advanced security features, compliance with industry standards, and unmatched flexibility. Our vision is bold: to empower one billion agents with Agentforce by the end of 2025. This is what AI is meant to be.”

Salesforce has called Agentforce the “third wave of AI.” Only time will tell if it truly delivers on the promise, but it appears to be off to a strong start.