- Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff questioned whether Big Tech's AI investments are delivering results.
- Salesforce is focusing on AI integration, not building costly data centers, Benioff said Wednesday.
- The company reported fourth-quarter revenue of $9.99 billion, missing consensus estimates.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has berated Big Tech peers for their spending on AI and data centers, questioning whether companies like Microsoft are seeing real returns on their massive investments.
Benioff said Wednesday that Salesforce isn't investing in projects that would suck up the company's cash but wouldn't guarantee big returns.
"We aren't building huge $10 million, $20 million, $30 million, $100 billion data centers," Benioff said during Salesforce's earnings call. "We're not doing some of these kind of engineering efforts that may or may not have some kind of huge payoff, but is going to take down all of our cash and all of our margin for the next several years."
Instead, Benioff said the company is "augmenting" its existing product line with AI and taking advantage of "incredible" infrastructure investments by others to deliver on what he has called the "digital labor revolution."
Benioff's comments come as Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta have ramped up their planned AI investments for this year.
Amazon is leading the way, planning to allocate over $100 billion in capital expenditures this year, up from $77 billion in 2024. The vast majority will be spent on expanding Amazon Web Services and scaling AI infrastructure, the company said earlier this month.
Microsoft, which Benioff singled out by name on the earnings call, plans to spend $80 billion on AI-related infrastructure this year.
The Salesforce CEO isn't convinced by Microsoft's AI-powered workplace tools, describing the company as the "reseller of OpenAI" and questioning the company's agentic AI offering.
"Where on their side are they delivering agents? Where in their company have they done this? Where are they at best practice?" Benioff said, adding, "Do they have humans and agents working together to create customer success? Are they re-balancing their workforce with humans and agents?"
It's not the first time that Benioff has publicly taken shots at Microsoft.
Last year, he openly mocked Microsoft's AI assistant, Copilot, on multiple occasions, calling it "disappointing" and comparing it to Clippy, Microsoft's discontinued animated paperclip assistant.
Meanwhile, Benioff is pushing Salesforce's own rival agentic AI offering.
"Our goal is to be the number one provider of digital labor in the world," he said during the earnings call. "That's it. I don't think there really is another goal."
Salesforce reported fourth-quarter revenue of $9.99 billion, missing a consensus estimate of $10.04 billion.
Its shares fell by 5% in extended trading after the company forecasted fiscal 2026 revenue below Wall Street expectations.
Microsoft did not immediately respond to a Business Insider request for comment.
