Microsoft drops AI gross sales targets in half after salespeople miss their quotas

Microsoft has lowered gross sales development targets for its AI agent merchandise after many salespeople missed their quotas within the fiscal yr ending in June, in accordance with a report Wednesday from The Data. The adjustment is reportedly uncommon for Microsoft, and it comes after the corporate missed various formidable gross sales targets for its AI choices.

AI brokers are specialised implementations of AI language fashions designed to carry out multistep duties autonomously slightly 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 clients that brokers may automate complicated duties, resembling 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 yr attracts to an in depth, that promise has confirmed tougher to ship than the corporate anticipated.

In response to 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 clients develop AI purposes, by 50 p.c. 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 p.c development for the present fiscal yr. In one other US Azure unit, most salespeople failed to fulfill an earlier quota to double Foundry gross sales, and Microsoft reduce their quotas to 50 p.c for the present fiscal yr.