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One of the tech industry ’s biggest hype humans , Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff , want you to know that he is psyched about productive AI , but even he does n’t consider it can do what its biggest advocate say it will do . And he ( not surprisingly ) blames Microsoft .
A month after Salesforce ’s enormous tech league , Dreamforce , during which Benioff ceaselessly pitch , pumped , and lauded AI — at least as it ’s used in Salesforce ’s own mathematical product — he ’s now on a coif - expectations circuit . And he ’s trash talking his biggest competitor and arch rival , Microsoft . He of late look on the podcastRapid reply , host by former Fast Company editor program - in - boss Bob Safian .
Talking about AI ’s electric potential , he said , “ I ’ve never been more activated about anything at Salesforce , perchance in my career . ”
But he also warned that “ client have been told things about enterprisingness AI , mayhap AI overall , that are not truthful , ” he said . “ I consider Microsoft has done a tremendous disservice to not only our whole industry but all of the AI research that has been done . ”
Benioff had negative thing to say in particular about Microsoft Copilot ’s accuracy and usefulness . He even compared Copilot to Clippy , Microsoft ’s widely panned nineties talking paperclip cartoon that was reckon to be an assistant to Microsoft Office users .
“ We may have heard from theseAI priestsand priestess of these LLM example companies and Microsoft and others about AI is now curing cancer , and AI is curing clime variety , and we all have toplug into these atomic power plantsto get these data center . None of this is rightful , ” Benioff sound out .
He was doubling down on acommenthe made on X , where he say , “ LLMs ( Large Language Models ) are not the lineal bridgework to AGI , and much of AI ’s current electric potential is simply oversold . AI is n’t yet curing Crab or solving mood variety as pundits take . ”
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That was a dig at OpenAI CEO Sam Altman . in the beginning this summertime , he involve that with AI - enhanced health technical school , “ [ m]aybe a next version will help discover cures for cancer , ” Altman said at the Aspen Ideas Festival , report Newsweek .
Benioff also cited some research by Gartner about Microsoft Copilot . AGartner reportreleased in April called “ The Top 10 ‘ Gotchas ’ of Copilot for Microsoft 365 ” find oneself that only a quarter of the organizations doing Copilot pilot program programs are presently contrive a orotund - scale rollout . That ’s really a pretty secure number , given how new this tech is and how sluggish enterprises can be to adopt it . That enounce , Gartner also concluded that as Copilot improves , so will enterprise adoption .
Microsoft might point tomarket researchconducted by Forrester that cited a slew of bottom - pedigree welfare for small business that are using Copilot . Forrester found that co-pilot led to a tiny uptick in gross , while reducing operating monetary value and speeding new - hire onboarding , based on a resume of 266 lowly companies . However , we must observe that this research was pay for by Microsoft . Make of that what you will .
Still , Benioff has a item that the GenAI we have today , while sometimes mind - bollix up , is not quick to put back human workers in most cases . True , the podcast - makingcapabilities of Google ’s NotebookLM — which can produce kid AI - generated hosts that explicate material — is quite the party trick . Yet , it ’s heavy to see how such a thing will directly reduce the kind of someone - sucking menial labor tasks that bog down most corporate job .
Benioff is also spot - on that the one area where GenAI does seem to be doing a screaming good occupation with enterprisingness is AI agents . That ties in nicely with the Salesforce intersection he ’s been hype lately , Agentforce . A stack of other tech company and startups are work on on AI agent technologies , too , from build use case - specific ones , to offering platforms where businesses can build up their own . Just a few example includeOutRival , Atlassian ’s Rovo AI , andSierra , the startup found by former Salesforce carbon monoxide - CEO Bret Taylor and Google vet Clay Bavor .
AI agent are particularly finding their direction into customer service , range from much improved site chaffer bot to field serving guides . Examples includeZingtree , Talla , orNeuron7 . Salesforce has offerings here , too .
AI agents are also find success withsales , peculiarly prospect , the high - rejection rate frigidness - calling and emailing that is the bottom tier of every sales organisation . Examples admit Regie.ai , AiSDR , Artisan , and11x.ai .
“ I think we ’ll have more than a billion agents run from Salesforce within the next 12 months , ” Benioff speculated , based , he sound out , on have about 10,000 customers at his tech league to try it .
However , it ’s also worth point out that there are other domain where LLMs are already valued and where Microsoft , specifically , does have game . Software computer programmer and engineer increasingly apply them to facilitate them test and debug or generate code object lesson , include with Microsoft ’s GitHub Copilot . Countless startups are offer AI put one across helper as well , likeJetBrainsandContinue , to name just a duet .
Microsoft ’s close relationship with OpenAI means that its cloud , Azure , is a popular choice for enterprise that are using LLM models to build their own GenAI apps , too . So , Microsoft ’s tentacle into GenAI stretch out far beyond make Word pen document , having Excel whip up chart , or having Teams transcribe meetings .
At the same prison term , when the people who are literally talking up AI to sell their own AI products monish that the AI is overhyped , it ’s good to say that AI is overhyped .
“ It ’s about managing expectations while harnessing AI ’s capabilities , ” Benioff explained .
