Microsoft Lowers AI Software Sales Quota As Customers Resist New Products (reuters.com)
- Reference: 0180275521
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/25/12/03/1656245/microsoft-lowers-ai-software-sales-quota-as-customers-resist-new-products
- Source link: https://www.reuters.com/technology/microsoft-lowers-ai-software-sales-quota-customers-resist-new-products-2025-12-03/
> Multiple divisions at Microsoft have [1]lowered sales growth targets for certain artificial intelligence products after many sales staff missed goals in the fiscal year that ended in June, [2]The Information reported on Wednesday. It is rare for Microsoft to lower quotas for specific products, the report said, citing two salespeople in the Azure cloud unit. The division is closely watched by investors as it is the main beneficiary of Microsoft's AI push. [...]
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> The Information report said Carlyle Group last year started using Copilot Studio to automate tasks such as meeting summaries and financial models, but cut its spending on the product after flagging Microsoft about its struggles to get the software to reliably pull data from other applications. The report shows the industry was in the early stages of adopting AI, said D.A. Davidson analyst Gil Luria. "That does not mean there isn't promise for AI products to help companies become more productive, just that it may be harder than they thought."
[1] https://www.reuters.com/technology/microsoft-lowers-ai-software-sales-quota-customers-resist-new-products-2025-12-03/
[2] https://www.theinformation.com/articles/microsoft-lowers-ai-software-sales-quotas-customers-resist-newer-products
Smart companies will avoid today's pretend AI! (Score:2)
The companies that understand will fully embrace automation, not the vendors pretend AI! Why?
Because Today's AI is just fancy automation pretending to be AI for sales and marketing purposes!
Smart companies know this!
The true message for where we are today is.
Today's AI is Smoke and Mirrors! But Automation just works!
Re: Smart companies will avoid today's pretend AI! (Score:2)
Companies with smart leadership will put just enough effort into AI bullshit to have something to sell to idiots, but won't bet the farm on it.
"That does not mean there isn't promise for AI" (Score:2)
Yeah, just like the promise that crypto would replace fiat currency, and the promise that buying nothing and receiving a JPG of a cartoon monkey as a receipt was a wise investment vehicle. I can't wait for the bubble to pop so we can get this "Useless chatbots in literally everything" era over with.
Sales quotas for an immature, experimental product (Score:5, Insightful)
...are nonsense
The proper approach would be to allow customers to try the AI tools for free and give honest feedback
Customers should be advised of the existence of the AI tools and given the option to use or not
The AI should not be forced or otherwise coerced and should be easy to turn off
If something is really good, people will choose it voluntarily and even pay for it
Re: (Score:2)
MBAs only care about the value of their stock options, not whether their ideas are nonsense.
And AI is The New Hotness right now.
Hope this counts towards their quota (Score:3)
I recently swapped my M365 family account to the classic version without AI. Fuck CoPilot.
Era of hallucination (Score:2)
The quote from the summary says it all:
> after flagging Microsoft about its struggles to get the software to reliably pull data from other applications.
When today's AI models are just as likely to pull real data it has access to as to hallucinate, you can't rely on it at all. Just like self-driving that you have to have your hands on the wheels for, just in case.
The most today's tech is good for is guided automation - mostly through a chat bot. And who is going to pay for that when they can get most of what they want for free from ChatGPT?
Re: (Score:3)
I've tried ChatGPT - when it comes to hallucinations: I think LSD does it better!
Financial data? (Score:2)
> ... the Azure cloud unit... is closely watched by investors as it is the main beneficiary of Microsoft's AI push
I'd really like to see some substantive evidence that the Azure division's profits have increased as a result of AI. Absent that evidence, I'm happy to call BS on the claim.
So much wrong with this thinking. (Score:2)
> lowered sales growth targets for certain artificial intelligence products ...
> lower quotas for specific products
If it's something customers actually want, or even need, you don't need sales targets/quotas.
Wrong direction (Score:2)
I would like to have XP 64 back, just give me SSD TRIM support and driver updates...
Resist? No. (Score:2)
I tried it. For the first 15 minutes I thought the world had changed forever. Then I looked closely at what it was giving me. I've gone through this cycle maybe 40 times. I was even paying Open AI 20 a month for a bit. It has been a big letdown. I'm not resisting it, I just don't find it useful enough to pay for.
harder than they thought! (Score:2)
I wonder when they are going to figure out where to get the power for AI, and then how to make money off of it that will cover the massive costs which don't go down at scale but go up?
Roger Rabbit (Score:2)
You can just see MS blubbering like Roger Rabbit: Ppllllbbbbsssseeeeeeesssse use our AI, it has health benefits and is fun to be with!!!
Microsoft's AI push (Score:1)
> The division is closely watched by investors as it is the main beneficiary of Microsoft's AI push.
...off the cliff.
Anti-features (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe I'm just a weirdo but I am very annoyed at them for trying to take away the option of local-only accounts. Why do I need to let them be a third party to everything I do starting with logging in? Nobody asked for this.
Re: (Score:2)
Datamining, Microsoft is going to milk their customers for as much money as they possibly can, I would dump Microsoft and switch to Linux
Re: (Score:2)
A bunch of reasons, but the most obvious is that they want to tie your soon to be mandatory usage of their "AI" cloud to an account so they can store all your stuff on their servers and cut you off if you use those bazillions of GPUs more than they expect.
Also, Bitlocker seems to be tied to a Microsoft account because it appears they store the password there. I set up a new Windows PC recently and it decided to turn Bitlocker on without asking me, but ultimately it didn't seem to encrypt the disk because I'
Re: (Score:2)
Nope the
AdTech - guys asked for it
The AI - guys asked for it
The cloak and dagger - guys probably asked for it ...
Re: (Score:2)
> Maybe I'm just a weirdo but I am very annoyed at them for trying to take away the option of local-only accounts.
Are those two things somehow mutually exclusive?
To own you, of course (Score:3)
Or more specifically, to own your digital artifacts and identity.
Making you authenticate to the mothership makes it far easier to:
- surveil everything you do on your machine and over the network
- progressively make it harder to save files locally - they really want your data in Onedrive
- add metered billing for certain features
- and of course record details about how you respond to ads, which is the ultimate goal of every software company now