DAVOS, SWITZERLAND — The weather may have been teeth-chattering along the promenade in Davos, but that didn't stop Salesforce (CRM) co-founder and CEO Marc Benioff from firing off a few new choice words on AI rival Microsoft (MSFT). 

"Everybody knows that Microsoft has disappointed the world with Copilot and I mean, that's just a repackaged ChatGPT. You know that," Benioff told Yahoo Finance at the World Economic Forum, continuing his long-running criticism of Microsoft's AI business tools. 

This comes hot on the heels of a shot at Salesforce by Microsoft's often reserved CEO Satya Nadella.

“I think the notion that business applications exist, that’s probably where they’ll all collapse, right, in the agent era, because if you think about it right, they are essentially CRUD databases with a bunch of business logic,” Nadella said on a recent podcast taping with venture capitalists Bill Gurley and Brad Gerstner.

Microsoft spokesperson Frank Shaw declined to comment to Yahoo Finance on Benioff's remark. 

Benioff's AI bots, which can autonomously answer customer questions or describe products to clients, are going toe to toe with Microsoft's Copilot for workplace supremacy.

Salesforce closed 200 Agentforce deals in the third quarter. New users included FedEx (FDX), IBM (IBM), and Accenture (ACN). In total, Salesforce said it closed 2,000 AI-related deals in the third quarter.

Benioff declined to provide an updated figure on the number of Agentforce deals closed since the end of the third quarter. A source familiar with Salesforce told Yahoo Finance consumption of Agentforce has been strong out of the gate, an important bottom line signal as the company gets paid $2 per conversation.

"Well, this is going way faster than anything we've ever done, and it has been amazing, and it's very exciting," Benioff said. 

The Street has largely piled onto the bull narrative on AI agents, sending Salesforce's stock up more than 25% since new Agentforce solutions were introduced at the company's annual Dreamforce event on Sept. 17.

But there are a few skeptics. 

Earlier this month, Guggenheim analyst John DiFucci downgraded his rating to Sell in a rare move. He's only the second analyst on the Street to rate Salesforce a Sell out of 51, according to Yahoo Finance data.

"We do not believe that Salesforce will meaningfully monetize Agentforce unless it acquires several assets that have been doing, over the past decade, what Agentforce aspires to do. Salesforce's status as a system of record gives it staying power, but in our view doesn’t give it any advantage in providing AI solutions that require dynamic data with rich context versus the static data that Salesforce houses," DiFucci said.

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Brian Sozzi is Yahoo Finance's Executive Editor. Follow Sozzi on X @BrianSozzi, Instagram and on LinkedIn. Tips on stories? Email brian.sozzi@yahoofinance.com. Three times each week, Sozzi fields insight-filled conversations with the biggest names in business and markets on Yahoo Finance's Opening Bid podcast. Find more episodes on our video hub. Watch on your preferred streaming service. Or listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.

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