Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff is no stranger to controversy, especially when throwing shade and lethal jabs at Microsoft’s AI efforts.
This happened in the most recent episode following the company’s earnings report. Contrary to expectations, Salesforce posted weaker-than-expected quarterly revenue.
For context, the company earned $2.78 in adjusted earnings per share, 17 cents above the consensus among financial analysts. However, it reported $9.99 billion in revenue, a tad short of the expected $10.04 billion.
Salesforce’s revenue rose by 7.6% compared to the previous year, and net income increased to $1.71 billion from $1.45 billion.
The company’s top category of subscription and support revenue was service, at $2.33 billion, an 8% increase. It also generated $2.13 billion in revenue via its sales category.
It’s worth noting that the company unveiled its Agentforce AI-powered tech during the quarter, which is seemingly turning into a lucrative business.
Salesforce claims it has completed up to 3,000 paid Agentforce deals since October, with the AI agent participating in 380,000 conversations through its help website.
Perhaps more interestingly, human intervention was only required in 2% of the cases. According to Salesforce’s CEO:
“A lot of other vendors are talking about their agent capabilities, but few are able to show that they’ve got this really running at scale.”
Q4 Results and FY26 GuidanceSalesforce Growth: FY26 $40.9B (guidance)FY25 $37.9B FY24 $34.9BFY23 $31.4BFY22 $26.5BFY21 $21.3BFY20 $17.1BFY19 $13.3BFY18 $10.5BFY17 $8.4BFY16 $6.7BFY15 $5.4BFY14 $4.1BSalesforce Margin: FY26 34% (guidance)FY25 33% FY24 30.5%…February 26, 2025
To that end, Benioff foresees better growth in the forthcoming months across the company’s portfolio and services.
Salesforce CEO struggles to establish profit returns in Microsoft’s multi-billion dollar AI investments
While Marc Benioff promises Salesforce will have “a great year,” he seemingly expressed concern over the multi-billion dollar bets in the AI landscape by companies like Microsoft and whether they translated to sizable returns and profits (via Business Insider).
Salesforce’s CEO blatantly indicated that the company wasn’t investing resources into exorbitant AI projects that didn’t guarantee worthwhile profits.
We aren’t building huge $10 million, $20 million, $30 million, $100 billion data centers. We’re not doing some of these kind of engineering efforts that may or may not have some kind of huge payoff, but is going to take down all of our cash and all of our margin for the next several years.
Salesforce CEO, Marc Benioff
During the earnings call, the CEO highlighted that the company was embracing a different business model and sticking to its existing tech stack by augmenting its services using AI.
Benioff indicated that Salesforce plans to use infrastructure investments made by others to deliver the “digital labor revolution.”
The executive’s sentiments come at a crucial time when tech giants like Amazon and Microsoft are seemingly doubling down on their AI efforts.
Last month, OpenAI unveiled Stargate, a $500 billion project designed to facilitate the construction of data centers across the United States to support its AI advances.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella indicated that the company sets aside up to $80 billion annually for its AI advances while addressing the controversy about its partnership with OpenAI following the Stargate announcement.
On the other hand, Amazon recently allocated $100 billion to its capital expenditures, leading to the recent launch of Alexa+, a major upgrade for its existing generative AI assistant.
Benioff, as always, didn’t hold back any punches. He blatantly singled out Microsoft for its AI efforts, branding it a “reseller of OpenAI.” He doubts Microsoft’s AI-powered productivity tools and their effectiveness and efficiency.
According to Benioff:
“Where on their side are they delivering agents? Where in their company have they done this? Where are they at best practice? Do they have humans and agents working together to create customer success? Are they re-balancing their workforce with humans and agents?”
This isn’t the first time Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has placed Microsoft on the spot because of its AI efforts. Last year, the executive branded Copilot as the new Microsoft Clippy, suggesting it doesn’t deliver value.
