Marc Benioff dismisses Microsoft’s Copilot AI as the next ‘Clippy’

Microsoft debuted Clippy — the animated paperclip that made suggestions in Microsoft Word and other applications, and which could be viewed as a very early version of an AI assistant — in the 1990s but axed the feature a decade later.

Many users found Clippy’s overly positive attitude annoying, and its suggestions unhelpful.

Microsoft debuted Copilot last year, touting it as “your copilot for work” that could “turn your words into the most powerful productivity tool on the planet.”

Copilot was Microsoft’s entry into the AI product race, which has been largely driven by OpenAI’s ChatGPT. But Copilot was received about as well as Clippy.

Customers complained that the feature wasn’t as good as ChatGPT, though it was built on OpenAI’s technology. Microsoft said that customers simply weren’t using the features properly, but that didn’t stop some executives from backing out due to high expense and low value.

Benioff’s Salesforce, of course, competes with Microsoft. So his criticism is not surprising. He also took aim at some other companies running the AI race. He scoffed at AI products that rely on large language models, like ChatGPT.

“These LLMs, this is like we’re selling science projects to companies, and they’re tired of it. They have not gotten the value which is why you see these customers so excited. They’re coming here and they’re getting immediate value,” Benioff said, referring to customers attending his conference.

Earlier this month, Salesforce launched Agentforce, a collection of independent, specialized AI agents to support companies and their employees.

“We’ve onboarded tens of thousands of customers, and we’ve convinced them that you don’t have to DIY your AI,” Benioff told Bloomberg.

Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment.