Copilot AI Is The New Clippy? Salesforce CEO Mark Benioff Takes A Swipe At Microsoft's AI Offering

Clippy, an animated paperclip that appeared in Microsoft Office products, was notorious for its unhelpful advice and overly cheerful demeanour before it was phased out in the early 2000s.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff recently took a swipe at Microsoft’s Copilot AI, likening it to the much-maligned Clippy, Microsoft’s discontinued digital assistant from the 1990s. During an interview at Salesforce's Dreamforce event in San Francisco, Benioff criticised Copilot, suggesting it has failed to deliver value to users.

“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 conversation with Bloomberg.

What Is Microsoft Clippy?

Clippy, an animated paperclip that appeared in Microsoft Office products, was notorious for its unhelpful advice and overly cheerful demeanour before it was phased out in the early 2000s. Microsoft's Copilot, introduced last year, was meant to revolutionise productivity by acting as a work assistant, powered by OpenAI technology. However, reception has been lukewarm, with users comparing it to Clippy’s lacklustre performance.

Complaints about Copilot’s effectiveness have surfaced, despite Microsoft’s insistence that users aren’t fully utilising its features.

Benioff Disses Other AI As Well

Benioff, whose company competes directly with Microsoft, didn’t stop there. He also criticised other AI tools, particularly those powered by large language models like ChatGPT, suggesting that these products are being sold as "science projects" with little practical value.

“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 added, referring to attendees of Salesforce's conference.

In response to these challenges, Salesforce recently introduced Agentforce, a suite of AI agents designed to help businesses optimise their operations without the need to build their own AI tools. Benioff highlighted the success of the platform, noting that thousands of customers have already embraced it.