• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia

Trendingnow

1

Mark Cuban says he has the solution to growing income inequality, and it's to reward every employee—from CEO to janitor—with company stock

2

‘I want to die broke’: Billionaire philanthropist Denny Sanford dies after giving away $4 billion

3

'Dr. Doom' Nouriel Roubini says we're headed for universal basic income or 'some form of socialism' as AI revolutionizes work—He calls that optimistic

1

Mark Cuban says he has the solution to growing income inequality, and it's to reward every employee—from CEO to janitor—with company stock

2

‘I want to die broke’: Billionaire philanthropist Denny Sanford dies after giving away $4 billion

3

'Dr. Doom' Nouriel Roubini says we're headed for universal basic income or 'some form of socialism' as AI revolutionizes work—He calls that optimistic
TechAI

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

Sasha Rogelberg
By
Sasha Rogelberg
Sasha Rogelberg
Reporter
Down Arrow Button Icon
Sasha Rogelberg
By
Sasha Rogelberg
Sasha Rogelberg
Reporter
Down Arrow Button Icon
September 23, 2024, 3:12 PM ET
Marc Benioff speaks and gestures with both his hands in front of him.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said Microsoft's Copilot does not hold high value for its users.David Paul Morris/Bloomberg—Getty Images
Add Fortune on Google for similar content.

During the PC boom of the 1990s, Microsoft introduced Clippy as a friendly face to help users hone their word-processing skills. An animated paper clip with round cartoon eyes and expressive eyebrows floating over a sheet of yellow legal paper, Clippy would frequently and spontaneously pop out of the corner of the screen to provide advice and tips on saving files and using good grammar. Clippy was also almost universally hated, his shifting eyes and unsolicited feedback providing more irritation than comfort.

Recommended Video

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff believes Microsoft is on its way to a repeat act of creating a loathsome program meant to assist users in Copilot, the tech company’s foray into AI-powered assistance.

“We all know now that Microsoft Copilot is basically the new Microsoft Clippy, that customers have not gotten value from it,” Benioff said in a Bloomberg interview Thursday during Salesforce’s Dreamforce conference in San Francisco.

Microsoft has invested over $13 billion into OpenAI, the large language model powering Copilot. Launched in November 2023, Copilot promised to help expedite menial office tasks like summarizing Teams meetings and draft emails. Chemical company Dow plans to introduce the assistant to its 35,900 employees by the end of the year after a successful pilot test, but others aren’t sold on the program’s $30-per-month costs—particularly after Microsoft has had to iron out Copilot Designer’s issue of generating inappropriate images and its Recall feature that took excessive screenshots, jeopardizing user privacy.

Of course, Benioff’s criticisms of Copilot are in Salesforce’s best interest. The software giant announced a “hard pivot” to Agentforce, its own AI assistant program. The program, introduced last week, promises to integrate with hundreds of other applications to streamline business operations. It’s part of a growing movement of implementing AI agents over copilots to take tech assistance one step further.

“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,” Benioff said. “And they’re getting immediate value, and they’re able to use this next generation platform to do everything that they’ve heard that’s possible.”

Benioff is banking on Agentforce’s success, which is already being piloted by a few dozen companies like Wiley, Open Table, and Fossil. It hasn’t been all smooth sailing for the program so far. Andreessen Horowitz challenged Salesforce’s ability to create a compelling AI assistant, saying in a July blog post, “We believe AI will so fundamentally reimagine the core system of record and the sales workflows that no incumbent is safe.”

Salesforce and Microsoft did not immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment.

AI skepticism

AI skeptics are bracing themselves for the future of tech assistants. With upwards of $200 billion expected to be invested into AI by 2025, according to Goldman Sachs, some in the industry fear AI will not be able to keep its promise of revolutionizing how people engage with tech, threatening the lofty valuations of many tech startups.

Beyond a potentially muted moment in the AI hype cycle, firms also have to contend with mounting concerns over privacy and safety.

“Tech companies are putting this deeply flawed tech in the hands of millions of people and allowing AI models access to sensitive information such as their emails, calendars, and private messages,” Melissa Heikkilä wrote in the MIT Technology Review last October.

After introducing updates and AI agent features to Copilot last week, Microsoft doubled down on its promise of privacy when using Copilot’s chatbot feature. Jamie Teevan, Microsoft’s chief scientist, said Copilot customers will see greater value in the product once they optimize how to use it. She added the company is keen to avoid the pitfall of a nagging assistant like Clippy when continuing to develop its AI agents. Benioff isn’t convinced.

“Microsoft has deceived customers with their AI strategy, they don’t need to DIY it,” he said. “We build it into our platform, customers shouldn’t be forced to train and retrain their models.”

About the Author
Sasha Rogelberg
By Sasha RogelbergReporter
LinkedIn iconTwitter icon

Sasha Rogelberg is a reporter and former editorial fellow on the news desk at Fortune, covering retail and the intersection of business and popular culture.

See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon
Add Fortune on Google for similar content.

Latest in Tech

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025

Most Popular

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Fortune Secondary Logo
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • World's Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
  • Lists Calendar
Sections
  • Finance
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Features
  • Leadership
  • Health
  • Commentary
  • Success
  • Retail
  • Mpw
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
  • CEO Initiative
  • Asia
  • Politics
  • Conferences
  • Europe
  • Newsletters
  • Personal Finance
  • Environment
  • Magazine
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
  • Group Subscriptions
About Us
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • LinkedIn icon
  • Instagram icon
  • Pinterest icon

Latest in Tech

$5 billion tech CEO says unemployed Gen Z should be out 3 days a week building their network: ‘Sometimes those jobs you want, they’re never published’
SuccessCareers
$5 billion tech CEO says unemployed Gen Z should be out 3 days a week building their network: ‘Sometimes those jobs you want, they’re never published’
By Orianna Rosa RoyleJuly 21, 2026
3 hours ago
A Jersey Mike's logo is displayed outside one of their stores in San Diego, California.
InvestingIPOs
Jersey Mike’s IPO valuation could reach eight times Sweetgreen’s market cap
By Sheryl EstradaJuly 21, 2026
3 hours ago
LaLiga president says tech is already making the fan experience better, and it could solve football’s money problem too
AISports
LaLiga president says tech is already making the fan experience better, and it could solve football’s money problem too
By Catherina GioinoJuly 20, 2026
13 hours ago
A 13-year-old teenage boy looks at an iPhone screen displaying various social media apps.
PoliticsSocial Media
French President Macron backs effort to ban kids under 15 from social media before departing office next year
By The Associated Press and Samuel PetrequinJuly 20, 2026
14 hours ago
Photo of Hugging Face cofounder and CEO Clement Delangue.
CybersecurityAI agents
Hugging Face says it resorted to a Chinese AI model to battle a fully autonomous cyberattack because U.S. model guardrails stymied its defense
By Emily ForliniJuly 20, 2026
15 hours ago
Sumeet Agrawal is VP of Product Management (Data, AI Governance & Context Engineering for Agentic Systems) at Salesforce.
CommentaryAI agents
Salesforce VP on the leaky AI pipeline: why cheaper tokens won’t fix enterprise AI
By Sumeet AgrawalJuly 20, 2026
20 hours ago

Most Popular

Mark Cuban says he has the solution to growing income inequality, and it's to reward every employee—from CEO to janitor—with company stock
Success
Mark Cuban says he has the solution to growing income inequality, and it's to reward every employee—from CEO to janitor—with company stock
By Sasha RogelbergJuly 20, 2026
16 hours ago
‘I want to die broke’: Billionaire philanthropist Denny Sanford dies after giving away $4 billion
Success
‘I want to die broke’: Billionaire philanthropist Denny Sanford dies after giving away $4 billion
By Sydney LakeJuly 20, 2026
20 hours ago
'Dr. Doom' Nouriel Roubini says we're headed for universal basic income or 'some form of socialism' as AI revolutionizes work—He calls that optimistic
AI
'Dr. Doom' Nouriel Roubini says we're headed for universal basic income or 'some form of socialism' as AI revolutionizes work—He calls that optimistic
By Jason MaJuly 18, 2026
2 days ago
Warren Buffett says his $147 billion investing career was an accident: ‘I may be one of the 10 luckiest in the world’
Future of Work
Warren Buffett says his $147 billion investing career was an accident: ‘I may be one of the 10 luckiest in the world’
By Sarah GlodekJuly 20, 2026
1 day ago
Current price of silver as of Monday, July 20, 2026
Personal Finance
Current price of silver as of Monday, July 20, 2026
By Joseph HostetlerJuly 20, 2026
24 hours ago
It’s not just Taco Bell lettuce and possible glass in Pillsbury rolls: Food and drink recall events reached a 6-year year-over-year high
Retail
It’s not just Taco Bell lettuce and possible glass in Pillsbury rolls: Food and drink recall events reached a 6-year year-over-year high
By Sasha RogelbergJuly 20, 2026
24 hours ago

© 2026 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.