Microsoft has been slowly but steadily gaining share in Salesforce's key CRM software market. Generative AI may be a new challenge.

Microsoft Research President Peter Lee speaks at the University of Washington in 2023. (Allen School of Computer Science Image) What's next for AI, and

Matt Garman became CEO of AWS earlier in 2024. He took the helm as the cloud pioneer battles for supremacy in generative AI.

Microsoft has launched groundbreaking autonomous AI agents capable of handling complex business tasks independently, from sales qualification to supply chain management.

Microsoft AI tools for businesses that allow users to create “agents” to carry out specific work tasks are set to begin rolling out publicly next month, the company has said. AI agents are smaller, more focused versions of AI assistants which can be programmed to carry out a single task or have a specific area of focus,

Microsoft users will be able to build artificial intelligence agents starting next month that can onboard employees or answer help desk questions.View on euronews

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff criticized Microsoft for its AI-powered agents and compared Copilot to Clippy 2.0.

Analysts still expect Lumen's revenue to decline in 2025 and 2026 -- so they don't seem convinced its new AI contracts will fix its business. But with an enterprise value of $23 billion, Lumen's stock looks cheap at less than 2 times this year's sales.

Anthropic, the Amazon-backed AI startup founded by former OpenAI research executives, announced AI agents that can use a computer to complete complex tasks.

Microsoft says agents can save companies as much as $50 million a year or offer the equivalent value of 'adding 187 full-time employees' by automating business processes.