Marc Benioff dismisses Microsoft co-pilot as next ‘Clippy’

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

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

Microsoft launched Copilot last year, touting it as “your work copilot” 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 was largely led by OpenAI’s ChatGPT. But Copilot was received about as well as Clippy.

Customers complained that the feature was not as good as ChatGPT, even though it was built on OpenAI technology. Microsoft said customers simply weren’t using the features properly, but that didn’t stop some executives from pushing back because of the high costs and low value.

Benioff’s Salesforce, of course, competes with Microsoft. So his criticism is not surprising. He also watched other companies run the AI ​​race. He mocked AI products that rely on large language models, such as ChatGPT.

“These LLMs, it’s like we’re selling science projects to companies and they’re sick of it. They didn’t earn the value, which is why you see these customers so excited. They come here and get immediate value,” Benioff said, referring to the customers attending his conference.

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

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

Microsoft did not immediately respond to a request for comment.