Salesforce’s CEO has once again labelled Microsoft Copilot “Clippy 2.0” while making the case for Slackbot’s customer context advantage
Marc Benioff is at it again.
The Salesforce CEO has spent the better part of two years taking potshots at Microsoft Copilot, calling it inaccurate, a “disappointment”, and most memorably, “Clippy 2.0.”
His latest jab came via X, where he dismissed Copilot and positioned Slackbot as the smarter alternative for sales teams and CRM users.
In the post, Benioff wrote:
“Tired of Microsoft Copilot as Clippy 2.0? Meet the all-new Slackbot for Salesforce—built on @Anthropic’s Claude: Your new #1 AI CRM sidekick & every sales leader’s BFF!”
The post went on to claim that Slackbot eliminates “app chaos” and delivers “pure AI productivity in Slack”, tapping into Salesforce records, editing objects, and unleashing agents for “killer plays & POVs.”
Tired of Microsoft Copilot as Clippy 2.0? Meet the all-new Slackbot for Salesforce—built on @Anthropic’s Claude: Your new #1 AI CRM sidekick & every sales leader’s BFF! No more app chaos—pure AI productivity in Slack. Taps records, edits objects, unleashes agents for… pic.twitter.com/uUKLW0jTUC
— Marc Benioff (@Benioff) February 3, 2026
It’s a familiar pattern. Back in October, Benioff said Copilot “just doesn’t work” and accused it of “spilling data everywhere”, citing a Gartner report.
In August, he told analysts that “so many customers” were disappointed. Microsoft has pushed back on those claims, noting that Copilot’s customer base grew over 60% in one quarter and daily users more than doubled.
But this time, the criticism comes with a product pitch attached.
Salesforce made the new version of Slackbot generally available in January, and the company is betting that embedding AI directly into Slack gives it an edge Microsoft can’t match.
The CX Angle Salesforce Keeps Coming Back To
Salesforce’s pitch for Slackbot centers on the idea that AI is only useful if it understands what you’re working on without you having to explain it first.
In a customer service context, speed and context can determine whether an interaction feels smooth or frustrating.
If an agent has to hunt through Salesforce, ping three Slack channels, and dig through Google Drive just to prep for a customer call, the customer waits. If the briefing is wrong or incomplete, the interaction starts on the back foot.
Slackbot is supposed to fix that by pulling from Salesforce data alongside Slack conversations and files.
Salesforce claims it can assemble “recent discussions, relevant documents, and customer history into a single, clear briefing” before a call or escalation.
Haley Gault, an Account Executive at Salesforce, described the practical upside in the company’s release:
“It saved me from having to go through 10 different channels asking if anyone knows what this customer is requesting.”
She also described how it changes call preparation: “It gives me a 30,000-foot view of who the customer is, what their industry is facing right now, and how we could potentially support them.”
If that holds up in real deployments, the CX payoff could be fewer internal pings, fewer “let me get back to you” moments, and fewer situations where customers repeat themselves because teams can’t locate the last decision.
More Than Search, But is it More than Copilot?
Salesforce also wants Slackbot to be seen as something beyond conversational search.
Kurt Kemple, who leads Developer Strategy at Slack, framed the advantage as proximity plus context, not just a better model:
“All of that is information Slackbot already has about you. With most AI tools, you have to explain what you’re working on before they can help. Other tools, I have to prepare for. Slackbot, I just use it.”
From a CX perspective, that matters because adoption is usually the limiter. If AI requires a separate interface, separate training, and separate workflows, it tends to stay niche.
Slackbot’s promise is that it meets employees where escalations and customer decisions are already happening.
Salesforce also shared internal metrics showing two-thirds of employees have tried Slackbot, 80% of those users keep using it, and internal satisfaction hit 96%.
The company says users are saving between two and 20 hours a week.
That’s the kind of productivity claim that CX leaders will want to test carefully, because the real value shows up in how consistently Slackbot can surface the right information under pressure.
Why Benioff Keeps Swinging at Microsoft
The timing of Benioff’s latest criticism is not accidental. Salesforce is pushing hard into agentic AI with Agentforce and positioning Slack as the conversational interface for that strategy. Microsoft is doing the same thing with Copilot and Teams.
The overlap is only going to increase, and Benioff seems determined to frame Salesforce as the vendor with better execution and tighter integration.
Back in May, he accused Microsoft of running an anti-competitive “playbook” against Slack, referencing the European Commission’s investigation into Microsoft bundling Teams with Office 365.
“You can see the horrible things that Microsoft did to Slack before we bought it,” Benioff said during an interview with SaaStr.
“That playbook should get ripped up and thrown away.”
He also warned that Microsoft is “starting to run a separate playbook against OpenAI”, pointing to recent reports that suggest Microsoft is building competitive models to reduce its dependence on its partner.
For CX teams, the broader question is whether Slackbot becomes a dependable “customer context layer” in day-to-day service work, or whether it lands as a convenient productivity add-on that stays mostly internal.
Either way, Salesforce is making its direction obvious: the battle for customer experience speed and consistency is shifting toward whoever can stitch together conversations, systems of record, and trusted action paths in one place. And Benioff wants to make sure Microsoft doesn’t win by default.
