Senators Will Prod Live Nation and Ticketmaster on Antitrust

But DealBook has learned that Microsoft expects this technology to improve its software that manages a company’s interactions with customers — Salesforce’s main business.

Microsoft is doubling down on customer relations software. Last year, Microsoft launched an app called Viva Sales that automates some customer relationship management, or C.R.M., functions across its products, including Teams and Outlook. The app can, for example, automatically write a meeting summary, which it then uses to track progress on goals discussed.

ChatGPT boosts this sector’s revenue potential for Microsoft. The product “will only get better with GPT,” Frank Shaw, a spokesman for Microsoft, said, adding that the technology could also help curate content ideas or automate repetitive tasks like email.

The Guggenheim Partners analyst John DiFucci estimates that C.R.M. could eventually be a $7 billion opportunity for Microsoft, up from the roughly $3 billion it brings in today. “I always wondered why Microsoft wasn’t a more major player — especially given that they have Outlook, which is sort of a C.R.M. system,” he said.

But Salesforce has a strong incumbent position. The company has been experimenting with its own artificial intelligence; its C.E.O., Marc Benioff, is a declared fan of ChatGPT. And for companies that use Salesforce, the costs of switching providers are high. Still, Microsoft is a formidable competitor and its products are already ubiquitous in corporations.

The addition of A.I. to that arsenal could make its products “more intelligent than what Salesforce has today,” according to Sid Nag, an analyst at Gartner. “And Salesforce has to tell the world how they will respond to that.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/24/business/dealbook/live-nation-ticketmaster-antitrust.html