Jim Cramer’s Latest Game Plan: 20 Stocks to Watch

2. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 279

While Cramer has previously highlighted Microsoft Corporation’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) enormous position multiple times, on Friday, he highlighted that Copilot’s performance did not turn out the way we all thought. Here’s what he had to say:

“After the close, we got… Meta Platforms and Microsoft… Let’s talk about how Copilot may not be as strong as we thought. Somehow, they have to put that story to rest or it’s going to dog the stock until they come up with a new narrative.”

Microsoft’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) offerings include enterprise software, consumer applications, cloud services, gaming, social media, and hardware. A celebrated product in its lineup is Microsoft 365 Copilot, which functions as a personal assistant designed to improve productivity. Since its general release less than a year ago, approximately 60% of Fortune 500 companies have started using this tool to some extent, with the daily user count nearly doubling in the latest quarter.

In the most recent quarter, Microsoft’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) Chief Financial Officer, Amy Hood, revealed that the company allocated $19 billion for capital expenditures, which includes finance leases primarily focused on artificial intelligence and cloud-related initiatives.

However, it should be noted that recently, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff publicly critiqued the tool, suggesting that the rebranding of Copilot as “agents” indicates a level of distress within Microsoft. He characterized Copilot as lacking essential data, metadata, and enterprise security features necessary for creating effective corporate intelligence.

Furthermore, Benioff described the tool as inaccurate, claiming it risks exposing corporate data and compelling users to develop their own large language models. Referring to Copilot, he drew a parallel to Clippy, the infamous paperclip assistant from the 1990s, suggesting that Copilot has not yet lived up to its potential.