Microsoft has lowered gross sales development targets for its AI agent merchandise after many salespeople missed their quotas within the fiscal 12 months ending in June, in keeping with a report Wednesday from The Data. The adjustment is reportedly uncommon for Microsoft, and it comes after the corporate missed quite a lot of bold gross sales targets for its AI choices.
AI brokers are specialised implementations of AI language fashions designed to carry out multistep duties autonomously quite than merely responding to single prompts. So-called “agentic” options have been central to Microsoft’s 2025 gross sales pitch: At its Construct convention in Might, the corporate declared that it has entered “the period of AI brokers.”
The corporate has promised prospects that brokers might automate complicated duties, reminiscent of producing dashboards from gross sales information or writing buyer studies. At its Ignite convention in November, Microsoft introduced new options like Phrase, Excel, and PowerPoint brokers in Microsoft 365 Copilot, together with instruments for constructing and deploying brokers by Azure AI Foundry and Copilot Studio. However because the 12 months attracts to a detailed, that promise has confirmed more durable to ship than the corporate anticipated.
In accordance with The Data, one US Azure gross sales unit set quotas for salespeople to extend buyer spending on a product referred to as Foundry, which helps prospects develop AI purposes, by 50 %. Lower than a fifth of salespeople in that unit met their Foundry gross sales development targets. In July, Microsoft lowered these targets to roughly 25 % development for the present fiscal 12 months. In one other US Azure unit, most salespeople failed to satisfy an earlier quota to double Foundry gross sales, and Microsoft minimize their quotas to 50 % for the present fiscal 12 months.
