Salesforce and Microsoft square off with new AI sales agents: A 2025 overview

It feels like every tech company is racing to build a "digital workforce" these days. We're moving way beyond simple AI chatbots. Companies are now rolling out autonomous AI agents that can handle genuinely complex sales and support tasks, all in the name of working smarter and boosting revenue. And, as you might expect, two of the biggest names in the game, Salesforce and Microsoft, are leading the charge. They're both launching powerful new AI sales agents that plug directly into their massive ecosystems, setting the stage for a major showdown over the future of business automation.

So, let's get into it and see how this Salesforce and Microsoft square off with new AI sales agents battle is shaping up. We’ll look at Salesforce's Agentforce and Microsoft's Copilot for Sales, comparing what they offer, how they handle knowledge, what they cost, and the general philosophy behind each. We’ll also touch on a different approach for teams who need a bit more flexibility and don't want to get locked into one ecosystem.

What are these AI sales agents?

Before we jump into the head-to-head comparison, let's be clear: we're not just talking about another chatbot. AI sales agents are autonomous programs built to handle sales-related work without a human constantly looking over their shoulder. They can understand context, figure out multi-step problems, pull in business data, and actually do things.

Here’s a taste of what they can do:

• Engaging with leads: They can greet visitors on your website, ask the right qualifying questions, and capture all the important lead details.

• Sending personalized outreach: They can write tailored follow-up emails using info from your CRM and past conversations.

• Digging up information: They can answer tricky product questions by searching through knowledge bases, technical docs, and old support tickets.

• Automating tasks: They can schedule meetings, update deals in a CRM, and even generate quotes.

This leap from basic Q&A bots to agents that proactively get work done is what makes these new tools from Salesforce and Microsoft such a big deal.

A deep dive into Salesforce's Agentforce

Salesforce is betting big on Agentforce, framing it as the central nervous system for a company's entire digital team, with deep roots in its CRM ecosystem.

What is Salesforce Agentforce?

Agentforce is Salesforce's big platform for building and managing AI agents across a whole company, not just in sales. It’s powered by the Agentforce 360 Platform, which ties together data, AI, and workflows. A core part of their strategy is teaming up with top AI players like OpenAI and Anthropic to give their agents some serious brainpower and reasoning skills.

Agentforce features

• Agentforce Builder: This is a single place where you can design, test, and launch agents using plain English, low-code tools, or full-on code if you need it.

• Agent Script: A cool feature that blends predictable, rule-based workflows (for things that have to be done perfectly) with the flexibility of a large language model (for handling the messy reality of human conversation).

• Intelligent Context: This helps the agent make sense of unstructured info, like a long email chain or a call transcript, by pulling out the important bits.

• Autonomous Actions: Agents aren't just for talking. They can update opportunities, create quotes, research accounts, and even pop a meeting directly onto a sales rep's calendar.

Agentforce's ecosystem approach

Agentforce is built to run on your company's trusted business data. The main source of truth for it is a well-organized Salesforce Knowledge base. This means you need to put some real thought into setting up article types, data categories, and who has permission to see what.

Getting that knowledge base right is a pretty significant project. In its own documentation, Salesforce calls the setup a "'choose your own adventure' procedure." If you've ever set up a complex system, you know that "choose your own adventure" can quickly turn into "get lost in the woods" without a map.

To help with this and to connect to other tools, Salesforce created the Agentforce Partner Network. This is basically an ecosystem of third-party vendors and big consulting firms like Accenture and Deloitte. These partners build custom connections and templates to link Agentforce with outside systems. This heavy reliance on partners suggests that if you need to integrate with several different tools, you should probably budget for some serious implementation help. It's not exactly a simple, do-it-yourself setup.

Understanding Agentforce pricing

Salesforce has flexible pricing for Agentforce, which sounds great on paper but can be a bit of a double-edged sword. They offer models like Flex Credits, per-conversation fees, and per-user licenses. This flexibility can make it really hard to predict your costs. A busy month with lots of agent activity could leave you with a surprisingly big bill, making it tough to budget accurately.

Microsoft's Copilot for Sales approach

Microsoft is taking a different route. Their game plan is to weave AI agents right into the productivity tools that millions of us already use every single day, making AI feel like a natural part of the workflow.

What are Microsoft's AI sales agents?

Microsoft's solution is a set of new, specialized agents you can access from within Microsoft 365 Copilot. For sales teams, the two main ones are:

• Sales Agent: An autonomous agent that can dig into research, qualify leads, schedule meetings, and chat with customers.

• Sales Chat: An assistant that helps reps get ready for meetings by summarizing account histories and creating action plans, all by asking questions in plain language.

These agents are designed to play nice with both Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Salesforce, so reps can get work done without having to constantly jump back and forth between apps.

Key Copilot for Sales features

• Deep M365 Integration: The agents are right there inside Teams, Outlook, and other Microsoft 365 apps you’re already using.

• Work IQ: Copilot uses an intelligence layer called "Work IQ" that mashes up your company's data from Microsoft Graph (think emails, files, meetings, and chats) with your CRM data to give super relevant answers.

• Agent Customization: You can build your own custom agents with Copilot Studio, a low-code platform for tweaking AI experiences to fit your needs.

• Multi-Source Search: Agents can search across Microsoft 365, your own on-premise data, and other business apps through a library of over 100 connectors.

Copilot's ecosystem approach

Copilot's biggest advantage is that it can tap into the treasure trove of unstructured data sitting in your company's Microsoft 365 account. It can read emails, analyze meeting transcripts, and pull info from SharePoint docs to inform its actions. It also supports integrated search providers to pull in content from external websites or other knowledge systems.

But this deep integration is also its biggest dependency. To really get the most out of Copilot, your business has to be all-in on the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. If your knowledge and workflows are scattered across other platforms, you won't be able to use Copilot to its full potential.

Understanding Microsoft 365 Copilot pricing

Microsoft's pricing is simpler, but it comes with a pretty big string attached. Microsoft 365 Copilot costs $30 per user per month, and you have to commit to a full year.

But here’s the catch: that's an add-on license. You have to already be on a Microsoft 365 E3 or E5 commercial plan to even be eligible to buy Copilot. For companies that aren't on one of those specific enterprise plans, this prerequisite is a huge hidden cost that makes the total investment much higher than that $30 sticker price.

Choosing a path: Ecosystem vs. flexible integration

Both Salesforce and Microsoft are offering some seriously powerful, enterprise-level tools. But their all-or-nothing approach comes with trade-offs that might not work for every team, especially if you're looking for something you can get up and running quickly.

The challenge with monolithic platforms

• You're locked into their world: Both platforms are at their best when you’re already deep in their ecosystem, whether that’s Salesforce CRM or Microsoft 365. If your company’s knowledge is spread across tools like Google Docs, Confluence, or Notion, getting it all connected can be a real headache.

• Implementation can take a while: Getting started isn't as simple as flipping a switch. Salesforce's model nudges you toward hiring implementation partners, and Microsoft requires you to be on specific enterprise plans. This can mean projects that stretch on for months, not minutes.

• Costs can be complex and unpredictable: Salesforce’s credit-based pricing makes budgeting a guessing game, while Microsoft’s per-user cost adds up fast and sits on top of already expensive subscriptions.

A unified alternative with eesel AI

But what if you don't want to be locked into one massive system? For teams that need to stay agile, there's another way to think about this. This is where tools like eesel AI come into the picture. Instead of making you move all your work into one ecosystem, eesel plugs right into the tools you’re already using.

• Go live in minutes, not months: eesel is truly a self-serve tool. You can get a functional AI Agent up and running yourself with one-click integrations for helpdesks like Zendesk and Intercom, and knowledge sources like Confluence and Google Docs, without needing a single sales call or demo.

• Bring your scattered knowledge together: eesel was built from the ground up to connect all your different knowledge sources. It can learn from your past support tickets, help center articles, internal wikis in Notion, and shared files in Google Drive. This creates one single source of truth for the AI, no matter where your info is stored.

• You're in control, with clear pricing: eesel gives you a powerful workflow engine so you can decide exactly which questions the AI should handle and what actions it can take. The pricing is straightforward and predictable, with no weird per-resolution fees, so you won't get hit with a surprise bill at the end of the month.

Which agent is right for you?

The fact that Salesforce and Microsoft square off with new AI sales agents shows we're entering a new era of automation. So, which path should you take?

• Choose Salesforce Agentforce if: You're already all-in on the Salesforce ecosystem, need a super customizable platform to build all kinds of agents across your business, and have the budget and time for a proper implementation project.

• Choose Microsoft 365 Copilot if: Your company lives and breathes Microsoft 365, and you want to give your sales team AI superpowers right inside the apps they use every day.

• Consider eesel AI if: You need a powerful and flexible solution that you can get up and running fast. It unifies all your existing knowledge sources and works with your current helpdesk, all with predictable pricing and a do-it-yourself setup.

Ultimately, the best choice really boils down to your current tech stack, your budget, and how quickly you need to start seeing results.

Ready to see what a flexible AI agent can do?

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