Microsoft Will 'Compete Aggressively' With OpenAI, Says Salesforce CEO

Salesforce Chair, CEO & Co-Founder Marc Benioff thinks Microsoft is making a move to compete directly with OpenAI. Benioff also says the Trump administration is offering an 'exciting moment' for business. Benioff also sees excitement coming in mergers and acquisitions. He says there will be “thousands” of deals for its new Agentforce AI product in the current fiscal quarter. “We did about 200 deals in our third quarter, in our fourth quarter we’ll see thousands of Agentforce deals,” Benioff said Tuesday in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Salesforce’s fiscal fourth quarter is expected to end Jan. 31. Salesforce, the top seller of customer relations management software, pivoted its AI strategy last year to focus on agents — tools that can complete tasks such as customer support or sales development without human supervision. It launched the product, dubbed Agentforce, late last year, with initial pricing of about $2 per agent conversation. Benioff has talked up market interest in AI agents and has said he is hiring more than 1,000 salespeople to push the new products. “I’ve never seen anything go as fast at Salesforce,” Benioff said of Agentforce. Shares of Salesforce jumped about 2% following Benioff’s statements before pairing some gains. The company’s stock is up 19% over the last year. Marc Benioff spoke with Brad Stone at Bloomberg House in Davos, Switzerland. -------- Watch Bloomberg Radio LIVE on YouTube Weekdays 7am-6pm ET WATCH HERE: http://bit.ly/3vTiACF Follow us on X: https://twitter.com/BloombergRadio Subscribe to our Podcasts: Bloomberg Daybreak: http://bit.ly/3DWYoAN Bloomberg Surveillance: http://bit.ly/3OPtReI Bloomberg Intelligence: http://bit.ly/3YrBfOi Balance of Power: http://bit.ly/3OO8eLC Bloomberg Businessweek: http://bit.ly/3IPl60i Listen on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business app: Apple CarPlay: https://apple.co/486mghI Android Auto: https://bit.ly/49benZy Visit our YouTube channels: Bloomberg Podcasts: https://www.youtube.com/bloombergpodcasts Bloomberg Television: https://www.youtube.com/@markets Bloomberg Originals: https://www.youtube.com/bloomberg Quicktake: https://www.youtube.com/@BloombergQuicktake