Stocks move lower. Microsoft is down -2% in premarket trading
Stocks have taken a turn to the downside after a report from The Information that Microsoft has lowered its AI sales quotas.
The NASDAQ index is now trading down -83 points. The S&P futures are implying a decline of -7 points.
Shares of Microsoft are trading down -1.97% at $480 after closing at $490 yesterday.
In a post yesterday (Why the stock market is not out of the woods just yet), I wrote how Microsoft was testing its falling 100 hour moving average. That moving average comes in at $491.75. The price ticked above that level during intraday trading yesterday to a high price of $493.45, but could not sustain momentum and closed below that level at the $490, keeping the sellers in control.
https://investinglive.com/news/microsoft-lower-ai-sales-quotas-20251203/
Just weeks ago:
Microsoft faces uphill climb to turn enterprise dominance into widespread AI chatbot adoption
On Microsoft’s
earnings call last month, CEO Satya Nadella boasted about the company’s artificial intelligence products, and said over 150 million people are using its Copilot assistant for productivity, cybersecurity, coding and other endeavors.
But conversations with IT buyers at Microsoft’s Ignite conference in San Francisco this week highlighted some of the hurdles the company must overcome as it tries to sell its AI chatbot in the enterprise market.
“I know a lot of customers who are like, ‘Yeah, I want 300 to go to zero,’” said Adam Mansfield of consulting firm UpperEdge, referring to Copilot licenses. Mansfield, who helps companies negotiate Microsoft deals, said those clients are saying, “I don’t even want it.”
Microsoft started selling the commercial version of 365 Copilot two years ago for $30 per person per month, as an add-on to its broader productivity suite. The chatbot can answer a user’s questions based on information stored in corporate systems and can run alongside Microsoft apps, summarizing email threads, creating formatted presentations and capturing key points from calls.
Microsoft is competing in AI on multiple fronts, with its heftiest investment coming out of its Azure cloud infrastructure business. Alongside a $13 billion bet on OpenAI, Microsoft is the AI startup’s key cloud provider. In October OpenAI announced a $250 billion commitment.
Microsoft said revenue growth at Azure reached 40% in the latest quarter, topping the growth rate at Amazon
Web Services and Google’s
cloud business.
AI agents present a different challenge. Instead of paying for the infrastructure needed to run hefty workloads, customers are buying a new tool for their employees, and the return on that investment isn’t yet clear, according to a number of clients and consultants interviewed by CNBC.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/23/microsoft-faces-uphill-climb-to-win-in-ai-chatbots-with-copilot.html