Salesforce & Microsoft square off with new AI sales agents

Salesforce and Microsoft unveiled new AI sales agents yesterday, fueling a fiery corporate grudge match.

Salesforce announced the upgraded Agentforce 2dx, while Microsoft introduced its AI Accelerator for Sales alongside new Sales Agent and Sales Chat agents. While all these tools aim to boost sales productivity and efficiency, they have distinctly different strategic approaches.

Similarities

Agentforce 2dx and Sales AI aim to enhance sales processes, nurture leads more effectively and accelerate deal closures. Both integrate with their respective CRM systems. Microsoft’s agents will work with Dynamics 365 Sales and some third-party CRMs like Salesforce, while Agentforce 2dx is deeply embedded within the Salesforce platform.

Furthermore, both companies provide tools to build, customize and deploy these AI agents. Microsoft does this via Microsoft Copilot Studio. Salesforce launched the AgentExchange marketplace and the Agentforce Developer Edition alongside Agentforce 2dx.

Differences

Despite these similarities, there are essential differences in capabilities, positioning and other areas. 

Capabilities

• Salesforce’s Agentforce 2dx operates in the background, anticipates business needs based on data changes and takes actions without requiring explicit user prompts. This makes it much closer to a “true” AI agent and less like two apps working together.
• Microsoft’s Sales Agent and Sales Chat are more user-initiated through Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot Chat. Worth noting: Sales Agent possesses autonomous capabilities for lead research and meeting scheduling.

Positioning

• Salesforce is positioning Agentforce 2dx as a solution that extends beyond CRM, offering integration with an array of workflows and applications through the Agentforce API and MuleSoft. 
• Sales Agent and Sales Chat are aligned with the Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365 ecosystems. However, they can interact with external CRM systems. 

Marketplace and development

AgentExchange and developer capabilities may be a significant advantage for Salesforce. 

AgentExchange lets partners and users share and sell pre-built AI agents and actions, focusing strongly on security and user reviews. While Microsoft’s AI Accelerator for Sales program includes “pre-built agents,” there’s no sign yet of a similar open marketplace.

Salesforce’s free Agentforce Developer Edition has access to Data Cloud and a suite of developer tools, including AI assistance in Agent Builder, a Testing Center, CLI and VS Code Support, and DX Inspector. Microsoft emphasizes Microsoft Copilot Studio for custom agent creation and the ability to leverage Microsoft AI experts for model fine-tuning, but there’s no similar developer environment.

Agentforce 2dx will be generally available next month, while AgentExchange and the Developer Edition are available now. Sales Agent and Sales Chat are slated for public preview in May.

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