Private Preview: Dynamics 365 version 10.0.48 

Public Preview: Dynamics 365 version 10.0.49 

Disclaimer: The capabilities described here are in preview. Preview features are provided for evaluation only, are subject to change, and may not be released in their current form. Availability, timing, and functionality of any feature described here, including roadmap items and capabilities not yet generally available, are not guaranteed and should not be relied upon when making purchasing decisions. 

Inventory is often available, just not in the company where demand shows up. A customer may place an order in one legal entity while the best available stock sits in another. When that happens, teams often fall back on manual intercompany coordination, which slows fulfillment and adds operational cost. 

Cross-Legal-Entity Fulfillment Optimization in Dynamics 365 helps remove that barrier. By combining Distributed Order Management (DOM) with automated intercompany orchestration, the system can evaluate inventory across participating legal entities, help identify a suitable fulfillment location, and create the required transactions automatically. 

In practice, fulfillment decisions can be based on the right business signals, such as inventory availability, distance, cost, and sourcing rules, instead of being limited by company boundaries. 

For example, a retailer with separate legal entities in Germany, France, and Spain may receive an order in Germany when the local entity is out of stock. With this capability, DOM can identify available inventory in France, create the required intercompany flow, and route fulfillment to a suitable location. The customer gets a smooth order experience, while the retailer makes better use of inventory across the enterprise.

What we’re releasing 

Cross-Legal-Entity Fulfillment Optimization introduces five core capabilities: 

• Cross-LE fulfillment groups: Define fulfillment groups that include warehouses and stores across multiple legal entities, so DOM can evaluate a broader enterprise network instead of a single company. 
• Cross-LE inventory visibility for optimization: Allow DOM to evaluate inventory availability from participating legal entities and source from a larger inventory pool. 
• Enhanced fulfillment profiles and rules: Support multi-entity fulfillment strategies while preserving entity-specific configuration, such as delivery modes and sales order origins. You can define fulfillment logic once and apply it consistently across entities. 
• Automated intercompany transaction orchestration: When inventory is sourced from another entity, the system creates the required intercompany transaction chain automatically. 
• Cross-entity fulfillment execution: Orders sourced from another legal entity can be fulfilled through familiar execution experiences while remaining synchronized across participating entities. 

How it works 

Cross-Legal-Entity Fulfillment Optimization is a headless capability provided by Dynamics 365 Commerce and available in Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations (HQ). As long as orders are created in, or synchronized to, Finance and Operations, DOM can evaluate fulfillment options across participating legal entities and orchestrate the required fulfillment process. 

The initial release supports retail orders. Support for broader Supply Chain Management sales order scenarios is planned on the roadmap. Roadmap items are subject to change and are not a commitment to deliver. 

When DOM determines that inventory should be sourced from another legal entity, it orchestrates the intercompany transaction flow: the Original Sales Order (OSO), the Intercompany Purchase Order (IC PO), and the Intercompany Sales Order (IC SO). These documents remain synchronized throughout the fulfillment lifecycle. 

Fulfillment teams continue to use standard processes such as picking, packing, shipping, invoicing, and rejection handling. Status updates flow through the chain so each participating entity stays aligned. If a location rejects an order or inventory constraints change, fulfillment can be reassessed and optimized again using current conditions. 

The goal is a flow that feels seamless for operations while still preserving the controls, accounting, and intercompany structures that enterprises require. 

Business benefits 

• Increase inventory utilization: Make inventory usable across entities and reduce situations where stock exists but cannot satisfy demand. 
• Optimize fulfillment decisions: Let the engine choose the optimal location based on availability, distance, rules, and constraints, across participating legal entities. 
• Reduce manual effort: Automate intercompany transaction creation and ongoing synchronization. 
• Improve the customer experience: Increase fulfillment flexibility and help satisfy demand faster and more consistently. 
• Create a connected enterprise network: Move from isolated legal entity processes toward a more unified fulfillment strategy. 

From visibility to fulfillment: an end-to-end cross-legal-entity solution 

Cross-Legal-Entity Fulfillment Optimization follows Cross-Legal-Entity Inventory Lookup, released in 10.0.47. That earlier capability gave store associates the ability to see inventory across legal entities. Together, the two capabilities create a more complete cross-legal-entity flow, from visibility through fulfillment. 

The progression is simple: see inventory across legal entities, optimize fulfillment across legal entities, and execute fulfillment across legal entities. 

This helps organizations move beyond simply viewing inventory in another entity. They can act on it through intelligent optimization and automated execution, which is an important step toward a more connected fulfillment model across participating legal entities. 

Getting started 

Configuration builds on existing Distributed Order Management capabilities: 

• Enable Distributed Order Management and Azure Maps. 
• Establish intercompany trading relationships between participating legal entities. 
• Configure DOM Intercompany Vendor Mapping. 
• Define fulfillment groups that span participating legal entities. 
• Configure fulfillment profiles and rules. 
• Schedule the DOM processing jobs. 

Full configuration steps, fulfillment scenarios, and troubleshooting guidance are available in the product documentation. 

Availability 

Customers in the 10.0.48 private preview can contact the product team for enablement by creating an ICM with their environment details. Beginning with the 10.0.49 public preview, customers can self-enable the feature through Feature Management. 

Looking ahead 

Cross-Legal-Entity Fulfillment Optimization is more than a new feature. It is an early step toward more connected fulfillment across participating legal entities. 

Today, the capability supports Commerce sales orders across channels, including POS, e-commerce, call center, and headless orders through Commerce Scale Unit (CSU). We have also heard a clear ask from customers: make this compatible with Supply Chain Management (SCM) sales orders as well, so the same cross-legal-entity fulfillment approach can work for all sales order types. 

Cross-legal-entity inventory visibility for customer-facing e-commerce experiences is another area we are evaluating. Roadmap plans are subject to change and are not a commitment to deliver.

We are already looking into that direction. If SCM sales order support is important for your business, please reach out. We would like to understand your requirements. 

How to enable and share feedback 

• Have feedback?: Leave a comment or reach out to me directly. 
• Want to try it on 10.0.48 private preview? Raise an incident to request flight enablement and include your environment details. In 10.0.49 public preview, you can self-enable through Feature Management, so no incident is needed. 

Also recent release: DOM support for advanced warehouse items (10.0.46) 

DOM now supports advanced warehouse-enabled items, allowing them to participate in sourcing and fulfillment optimization scenarios where they were previously excluded. This expands the inventory DOM can evaluate and helps organizations apply fulfillment optimization more consistently across products managed with advanced warehouse processes. 

DOM is also compatible with advanced warehouse scenarios where inventory availability is correctly calculated with inventory statuses enabled, and where warehouse work, loads, and shipments align with the fulfillment strategy. 

One inventory network. Multiple legal entities. One intelligent fulfillment decision. That is the future we are building toward. 

The post Breaking the Company Boundary: Cross-Legal-Entity Fulfillment and Advanced Warehouse Support in DOM appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

AI agents are reshaping retail, but an agent is only as powerful as the systems it can reach. Connecting agents to commerce often means building custom integrations for every data source and channel, an approach that is brittle, slow, and challenging to scale. The Model Context Protocol (MCP) changes this. MCP is an open standard that lets a platform expose its capabilities once, enabling supported AI agents across multiple surfaces to call them in real time.

At NRF 2026, we introduced the Dynamics 365 Commerce MCP server as the foundation for agentic commerce. Adding to the MCP framework established by the Dynamics 365 ERP MCP server, the Dynamics 365 Commerce MCP server brings retail-specific business logic into the agentic ecosystem: product discovery, inventory availability, pricing, discounts, checkout, store operations etc.

Dynamics 365 Commerce MCP server now in Public Preview

Retailers and partners can now build agents that support the entire commerce lifecycle, operate across the full commerce value chain, and deliver secure, governed, context-aware, and consistent experiences.. Early feedback has been encouraging, with customers and partners expressing strong interest in AI-driven commerce capabilities.

Michael Hill, one of Australia’s leading jewelry retailers, has already been exploring the potential of the Dynamics 365 Commerce MCP server.

 “Our early experience with  testing Dynamics 365 Commerce MCP server has been promising. Having access to this type of tooling creates a practical way to introduce AI-driven innovation at the pace retail demands, simply by layering intelligence over existing commerce platforms.”

 — Shaun Morley, Group Retail and Omnichannel Systems Manager, Michael Hill

AMICIS Solutions is a Microsoft Solutions Partner specializing in commerce solutions for retail, hospitality, convenience, and aviation. Their early adoption of the Dynamics 365 Commerce MCP server reflects their commitment to building the next generation of agentic commerce experiences.

“Getting early access to the Dynamics Commerce MCP server has been a fantastic experience for us as a Microsoft partner. We used it to build a voice-driven commerce agent that puts natural-language intelligence right on top of Dynamics 365 Store Commerce, so store associates can search the catalog, manage carts, look up customers, and handle everyday POS tasks just by talking.”

— Gudni Vilmundarson, Director, Amicis Solutions

The opportunity: Commerce anywhere, powered by AI agents

Retail is at an inflection point. Consumer expectations have moved beyond omnichannel. Shoppers increasingly expect seamless, connected interactions where they move effortlessly from social-commerce discovery to mobile checkout, in-store pickup, curbside fulfillment, or voice-activated reordering. At the same time, retailers face sustained margin pressure, volatile demand, and labor constraints requiring making decisions and executing more continuously.

Retail Frontier Firms are responding by adopting an operating model where AI agents work alongside people, sensing, deciding, and acting across the retail value chain. The Dynamics 365 Commerce MCP server is the foundation that makes this possible.

Conversational commerce experiences

Commerce is increasingly incorporating conversational experiences. Customers want to text, talk, or chat their way to a purchase through messaging apps, voice assistants, social platforms, or GenAI interfaces like ChatGPT and Copilot. This shift demands a commerce engine that compatible agents, on any surface, can call in real time. The Dynamics 365 Commerce MCP server addresses this demand by giving every AI agent standardized access to the full commerce stack, from product discovery and pricing to cart, checkout, and order management, reducing the need for custom connectors in many scenarios or point-to-point wiring. Build once and extend across multiple channels.

Store operations reinvented

Store associates today can spend significant time navigating complex systems and not enough time with customers. The Dynamics 365 Commerce MCP server changes this by giving AI agents real-time access to commerce operations, so associates interact with store systems through natural language instead of memorized workflows. With Dynamics 365 Commerce MCP server-powered agents, associates can complete returns, exchanges, and order lookups using voice without stepping through multi-screen POS flows. Clienteling agents bring together purchase history, preferences, and loyalty data for personalized service. Receiving, fulfillment, and replenishment tasks become simple spoken requests. The result: faster onboarding, fewer errors, higher associate productivity, and more time on the floor where it matters most.

Autonomous agents that act across the commerce value chain

Beyond assisting humans in real time, the Dynamics 365 Commerce MCP server enables a new class of autonomous agents that can operate with configurable automation and approval workflows when a customer or associate initiates an action. Agents can spot restocking needs from B2B distributor demand and sales signals, notify teams in advance, and recommend or trigger reorder actions based on configured rules and approvals. They can detect when prices drop and reach out to a customer with a personalized offer. They monitor inventory levels across locations and reposition stock based on predicted demand before a shortage occurs. Subscription and replenishment agents maintain cadence without manual intervention, adjusting quantities and timing based on actual usage. For retailers, this means enabling more proactive and automated commerce operations: orders placed, customers retained, and inventory optimized with minimal disruption to your workers.

Commerce + ERP: One MCP foundation for the retail value chain

The full power of MCP emerges when Dynamics 365 Commerce and Dynamics 365 ERP MCP servers work together. The Dynamics 365 Commerce MCP server handles the selling side: product discovery, pricing, checkout, and order management. The Dynamics 365 ERP MCP server handles what comes before and after: merchandising, demand planning, procurement, inventory allocation, fulfillment, and financials. Pricing agents can read trade agreements, cost structures, and margin targets from the Dynamics 365 ERP MCP server to dynamically set and adjust prices across channels without manual intervention. Inventory agents monitor real-time stock levels across warehouses and stores, initiate replenishment when inventory falls below defined thresholds, and deliver accurate availability promises to customers at the point of sale. Post-purchase, agents track fulfillment, process returns with automatic ledger updates, and reconcile payments across both systems. Together, they give agents access to the entire value chain from planning to selling to settlement.

Architecture: How the Dynamics 365 Commerce MCP server works

The Dynamics 365 Commerce MCP server delivers Microsoft-managed commerce tools for storefronts, point-of-sale, and other clients. Built-in security and governance let retailers create unique commerce experiences without managing MCP infrastructure.

We’ve designed the Dynamics 365 Commerce MCP server tools around customer intent, not APIs. Instead of exposing individual APIs, the MCP server provides purposeful tools for complete retail scenarios. Agents can discover products, check availability, apply discounts, build carts, and select fulfillment options seamlessly.

Dynamics 365 Commerce MCP server is a first-party MCP server that runs as a Microsoft managed endpoint on the Dynamics 365 Commerce Scale Unit (CSU), the same headless commerce engine powering Dynamics 365 Commerce storefronts, point-of-sale, and other clients. With enterprise-grade security, governance, and lifecycle management built in, teams can focus on delivering differentiated commerce experiences without building and maintaining their own MCP infrastructure.

The Dynamics 365 Commerce MCP server exposes tools designed around customer intent, not APIs. Instead of exposing individual APIs, the MCP server provides purpose-built tools for retail scenarios. Agents can discover products, check availability, apply discounts, build carts, and select fulfillment options in a single interaction.

MCP tools for shopping, checkout, and order lookup

The Dynamics 365 Commerce MCP server exposes commerce capabilities as AI tools that support end-to-end retail journeys. Each tool targets a business scenario, enabling agents to fulfill user intent through a single interaction.

The tools available today support core shopping journey scenarios from product discovery through checkout. Shoppers can browse the catalog, search for products, and view detailed product information including pricing, active discounts, and real time inventory availability. From there, agents can add items to cart, apply promotions, and complete checkout using Pay by Link. This works for both guest and authenticated users. Returning customers can also retrieve their full order history and order details, including status, line items, and fulfillment tracking. Authenticated consumer experiences are supported by agent hosts that support C2 authentication.

With this tool set, retailers can enable conversational discovery and selling experiences wherever their customers are: ecommerce sites, WhatsApp, GenAI platforms, and any channel that supports agent interactions. The same tools power the experience regardless of surface, giving retailers one investment that works across supported channels.

The following tools are available today in Public Preview

Beyond Public Preview, future capabilities are outlined in the official Dynamics 365 release plans. Please refer to the release plans for the most up-to-date information. You can see what is up next for Dynamics 365 Commerce in our release plans here: Microsoft Dynamics 365 – Release Plans

Quality and Evaluation

Shipping MCP tools to production demands more than functional correctness. It requires confidence that AI agents will behave reliably across diverse real-world scenarios. The Dynamics 365 Commerce MCP server has undergone rigorous testing and evaluation across key dimensions including: tool selection accuracy, parameter precision, grounding fidelity, end to end scenario completion, multi turn task success, latency and efficiency, error handling and failure recovery, edge case robustness, and response helpfulness. These evaluations run continuously across tool updates and model changes, catching regressions before they reach customers. The result is designed to meet enterprise requirements for reliability and performance. Quality assurance isn’t an afterthought, it’s a foundational investment baked into every release.

Getting Started

Dynamics 365 Commerce MCP server is delivered as a managed endpoint on your Commerce Scale Unit 10.0.48 release. Once the endpoint is enabled, any MCP-aware host such as Microsoft Copilot Studio, ChatGPT, or your own orchestrator can connect to it, sign in via Microsoft Entra ID, and start calling tools.

The following prerequisites are needed to get started:

• Commerce Scale Unit on version 10.0.48 or later, with at least one active online channel published.
• MCP endpoint enabled on the CSU. Administrators can enable or disable this in a self-service manner from the Commerce Scale Unit details page in LCS.
•  Microsoft Entra ID tenant for agent authentication. For authenticated shopper scenarios (order history, saved addresses), the shopper signs in through your configured identity provider.
•  Any MCP-compatible agent host such as Microsoft Copilot Studio, ChatGPT, or other MCP clients.
•  Endpoint URL from the Commerce Scale Unit in LCS once the endpoint is enabled.

To create an agent with Microsoft Copilot Studio, add the Dynamics 365 Commerce MCP server as a tool source by pointing it at your endpoint URL, configure Entra ID authentication, and publish to any supported channel including your commerce website, Teams, Microsoft 365 Copilot, or Messenger. The agent automatically discovers available tools offered with the Dynamics 365 Commerce MCP server, so you can test full shopper journeys from product discovery through checkout, then tune with brand voice, guardrails, and knowledge sources before going live.

To enable the Dynamics 365 Commerce MCP server on ChatGPT, register it as a connector by pointing it at your endpoint URL and configure OAuth with Microsoft Entra ID so authenticated flows (order history, saved addresses) run under the shopper’s context while anonymous flows (discovery, cart, checkout) work without sign-in. Validate the experience with sample shopping prompts, then keep the connector for internal use or submit it through ChatGPT’s app review for broader distribution.

For more details on available tools, and how to get started with the Dynamics 365 Commerce MCP server, refer to Microsoft Learn.

Partner Ecosystem

Our partner ecosystem is building on the Dynamics 365 Commerce MCP server to deliver on scenarios across key retail operations:

Amicis Store Commerce Agent — Voice-first assistant for in-store returns, exchanges, and order lookups using natural voice commands against live Commerce data.

Sunrise Commerce Companion — Retail agents simplifying inventory, fulfillment, purchasing, and store processes through natural language.

Argano Retail Clienteling Agent — Personalized, brand-aligned selling powered by customer insights and product data, turning in-store appointments into high-value moments.

Visionet FashionGPT Agent — Turns natural-language shopping intent into real-time execution across product, pricing, inventory, and promotions.

Evenica B2B Licensee Product Request Agent — Conversational AI with image recognition for product discovery and automated intake requests when items aren’t in catalog.

As we expand the public preview release, we look forward to sharing more customer stories and partner AI agents.

Conclusion

As the agentic ecosystem evolves, so will the capabilities exposed by the Dynamics 365 Commerce MCP server, giving retailers and partners continuously evolving capabilities to build on. Whether you are creating shopping assistants, automating store operations, or reimagining the checkout experience, the Dynamics 365 Commerce MCP server provides the connective layer between AI and the commerce logic and data that runs your business.

We invite retailers, partners, and developers to explore the Dynamics 365 Commerce MCP server in Public Preview, build your first agent, and help shape the future of agentic commerce.

The post Dynamics 365 Commerce introduces agentic capabilities with Model Context Protocol (MCP) appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Supply chain disruption is no longer the exception. It is the daily reality every business operates, driven by geopolitical instability, supplier failures, regulatory changes, and freight volatility. The challenge is not identifying disruption; it is synthesizing it fast enough to act. Businesses are flooded with signals across suppliers, logistics, operations, and compliance, but those signals remain fragmented across systems and teams, forcing reactive trade-offs instead of strategic action.

The leaders in this next era will be defined not by visibility alone, but by their ability to turn disruption into coordinated, cross-functional action before the cost of delay becomes too high. That’s where agentic AI comes in. 

Agentic AI redefines the supply chain workflow 

As supply chains become more dynamic, the way work gets done and operations are run is changing, and agentic AI is at the forefront. Agentic AI enables people and systems to work together more effectively, and Gartner predicts 60% of supply chain disruptions will be resolved without human intervention by 2031 (Gartner, March 18, 2026). Agents have the ability to reason over data, take action across workflows, reduce manual effort, and support faster, more consistent execution—while keeping humans in control of decisions and outcomes.  

Frontier firms are moving beyond isolated AI use cases and focusing on how decisions and actions connect and orchestrate across end-to-end processes. This shift it happening in three practical ways: 

• More proactive risk management: With access to real-time signals, teams can identify potential disruptions earlier and take action before they impact orders, production, or customer commitments.  

• Faster, more coordinated execution and orchestration: Insights are surfaced directly within the flow of work, so planners and operators can act immediately.  

• Coordinated human and agent workflows: Agents can take on high-volume tasks across the supply chain—from monitoring conditions to initiating actions—while people stay focused on oversight, exception handling, and strategic decisions. 

The result is a more responsive operating model. Let’s see how this approach comes to life in Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, and how organizations are using it to improve resilience, responsiveness, and end-to-end performance. Watch this video for a preview on how agentic AI with Dynamics 365 can transform your supply chain operations to a frontier firm.

Building an agentic supply chain 

Enabling this model requires connecting data, decisions, and actions across the supply chain. Dynamics 365 and Microsoft 365 Copilot support this by enabling agents to work across data and business processes in a governed way—linking signals, decisions, and execution within the flow of work. 

Several capabilities make this possible: 

• Connecting agents to data and execution systems: The Dynamics 365 enterprise resource planning (ERP) model context protocol (MCP) Server provides agents with secure, governed access to business processes and data. Using Dynamics 365 ERP MCP Server, agents can take action across the system—such as updating orders, adjusting supply plans, or initiating transfers—based on current conditions. See how Coca-Cola Beverages Africa uses Dynamics 365 and the Dynamics 365 ERP MCP server to autonomously run planning cycles, making the lives and the work easier for their end users.

• Grounding agent actions in business context: Work IQ gives agents real-time understanding of how work happens across the organization by connecting the productivity tools where decisions are made, including Outlook, Teams, and Word, to live operational data in Dynamics 365. Agents see the full context of a disruption, including its impact on orders, inventory, and customer commitments, and act on it directly in the system of record. 

• Agents operating within business policies and constraints: Agents act within defined rules—such as service levels, customer prioritization, and cost thresholds—so decisions remain aligned to business objectives and governance requirements. Additionally, Microsoft Agent 365 gives IT teams one place to observe, govern, and secure agents in your organization.  

“Our partnership with Microsoft has been instrumental in enabling Farmlands’ digital transformation. By standardizing on Microsoft Dynamics 365 and thoughtfully applying agentic AI with humans firmly in the loop, we are creating a more efficient, resilient, and scalable operating model.” 

Andre Scheepers, Chief Digital Officer, Farmlands Cooperative 

Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management

Learn how more customers are streamlining operations

See customer stories

Driving impact with agents from planning to delivery 

The impact of an agentic approach is best understood through how work changes across core supply chain processes.  

Forecast to plan: Continuous alignment of demand and supply 

Demand planning is no longer limited to periodic forecast updates. With Demand planning in Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, planners can incorporate external signals—such as changes in demand patterns, promotions, or market conditions—alongside operational data to continuously adjust forecasts and supply plans. Copilot in Demand planning, helps planners understand why the numbers are moving, not just what they are. With Copilot cursor and generative insights, every forecast becomes traceable and explainable, so planners spend less time consolidating data and more time evaluating scenarios and making decisions that keep demand and supply in lockstep.

Source to pay: From supplier signal to business action

Supplier updates often require immediate analysis—what orders are affected, what production is at risk, and what actions need to be taken. When a supplier flags a component delay, the Procurement Agent in Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management triages the supplier communication, matches it to the affected purchase order, and summarizes the downstream impact across inventory, sales orders, and production schedules. If inventory is available elsewhere in the network, the agent highlights the option. The procurement lead reviews the recommended response and moves forward spending time on decisions and mitigation, not tracing impacts across systems. 

Plan to produce and Inventory to deliver: Adjusting production execution, order fulfillment, and warehouse operations in real time 

Changes in material availability, labor capacity, or priorities require constant updates to production schedules and warehouse activities. Agents can help apply these changes directly within operational workflows—supporting updates to schedules, work orders, and task prioritization—so teams can keep operations running without delays often caused by manual coordination. Customer commitments depend on accurate, up-to-date information across inventory, production, and logistics. Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management connects these data points so teams can ensure that order promising reflects current conditions—reducing the risk of overpromising and enabling earlier communication when changes occur. 

“With Dynamics 365, we gain real-time visibility into our inventory across all locations, empowering faster, data-driven decision making and enhancing our overall operational agility.” 

Erdal Arslan, Financial Affairs Group Manager, LC Waikiki 

Order to cash: Enabling a smooth end-to-end customer order experience

Whether it is B2B or B2B2B, agentic commerce can connect customers to the right distribution channel, automate and accelerate the purchase experience from quote-to-order and the availability of accurate data increases speed and agility across the supply chain processes.  

Service to deliver: Optimizing asset performance and seamless field operations 

AI and agents in field service can provide timely updates on asset and work order information and coordinate field technician schedules that in turn improves overall production uptime, efficiency of delivery and customer satisfaction. 

Connect with us at the Gartner Supply Chain Symposium 

We invite you to engage with our leaders and explore these innovations firsthand during the symposium. Whether you are looking to learn more about the technology or for a strategic conversation on business outcomes, there are several ways to connect: 

• Our Featured Session: From Intelligence to Impact: Agentic AI for Faster, Smarter Supply Chains. Join Sameer Verma, Raghav Jandhyala, and Jodi Larson for a deep dive into how organizations are moving from initial AI exploration to achieving impact with agentic supply chain transformation. 

• Executive Boardroom: Join Sameer Verma, Raghav Jandhyala, and your fellow supply chain leaders for a strategic conversation and best practice sharing session where we’ll discuss how agentic-based approaches can improve supply chain speed, resilience, and business impact. CSCO Boardroom: Win the Volatility Era: Build a Faster, Agentic Supply Chain. 

Also, be sure to visit our booth during expo hours to talk to our experts and experience Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management in person.  

The post From intelligence to impact: How agentic AI is reshaping today’s supply chain appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

We’re entering a new era of AI-powered business applications, and today we’re excited to publish the 2026 release wave 1 plans for Microsoft Dynamics 365, Microsoft Power Platform, and role-based agents in Microsoft 365 Copilot, outlining a broad set of capabilities slated for release between April 2026 and September 2026. These updates reflect our ongoing commitment to making AI an essential partner in how organizations operate, innovate, and grow.

Dynamics 365 leads this wave with AI-powered, agentic innovations across sales, service, finance, supply chain, human resources (HR), and commerce—helping organizations unify data, automate processes, and elevate customer and employee experiences. Microsoft Power Platform continues to expand modern app development, intelligent automation, and enterprise-grade governance to empower makers and developers to innovate with confidence. Role-based agents in Microsoft 365 Copilot further evolve into intelligent daily command centers, helping to deliver richer, data-grounded insights and extensibility that help teams work smarter across every role.

To help you stay current on the most important and innovative capabilities, we’re moving beyond bi-annual launch events to lighter, more frequent business applications updates, featuring expert insights and demonstrations from Microsoft product leaders and engineers.

• Watch on demand: Dynamics 365 Business Applications Update
• Register for the Power Platform and Copilot Studio update April 15 at 9 AM PDT

Be sure to stay updated on the latest features and create your personalized release plan using the release planner.

Highlights from Dynamics 365

2026 release wave 1 updates for Dynamics 365 deliver AI-powered, agentic experiences across sales, service, finance, supply chain, commerce, HR, projects, sustainability, and enterprise resource planning (ERP)—bringing deeper Copilot integration, intelligent automation, unified customer and operational data, and enhanced cross-app capabilities to help organizations drive efficiency, elevate customer and employee experiences, and operate with greater agility and confidence.

Dynamics 365 Sales

Dynamics 365 Sales brings the power of AI to help sellers build their pipeline, enrich opportunities, and accelerate deal closure, while helping sellers easily access accurate, up-to-date information and recommending high-impact actions that sellers can take. Copilot experiences in Dynamics 365 Sales can draw on data spanning customer relationship management (CRM) and Microsoft 365 signals, like email and meeting recaps, to deliver actionable insights across Dynamics 365 and Microsoft 365 experiences.

Dynamics 365 Customer Service

Dynamics 365 Customer Service will continue to enhance agentic capabilities across case management, email, customer intent, quality evaluation, and knowledge management. AI-infused admin and supervisor help to provide more transparency and quicker time-to-value. These investments strengthen end-to-end service orchestration, from helping identify customer intent to driving autonomous workflows that elevate service quality and responsiveness.

Dynamics 365 Contact Center

Dynamics 365 Contact Center advances the agentic contact center in 2026 release wave 1 with new AI-powered capabilities that improve self-service, support accelerate assisted service, and help organizations run contact center operations more intelligently in 2026 release wave 1. It expands to include emerging channels, supervisor insights, and extensibility, giving organizations a unified, AI-powered system to elevate the customer experience.

Dynamics 365 Field Service

Dynamics 365 Field Service strengthens service execution across technician productivity, resource scheduling, and work order management. Investments focus on mobile usability and reliability, intelligent scheduling through the Scheduling Operations Agent, and end‑to‑end execution across assets, projects, and financial operations in this release wave. Together, these updates help organizations manage service complexity and deliver consistent service outcomes.

Dynamics 365 Sustainability

Dynamics 365 Sustainability introduces more intuitive reporting navigation, advanced calculation versioning, and granular data‑locking to reinforce governance and regulatory confidence in this wave. Expanded finance integration, streamlined workflows, and updated templates and factor libraries will further empower organizations to make informed decisions and support progress toward their sustainability goals.

Dynamics 365 Finance

Dynamics 365 Finance delivers continued global scale enhancements that drive greater financial automation, strengthen global regulatory compliance posture, and enhance financial planning and analytics—helping organizations operate more efficiently and achieve their financial and operational goals with confidence.

Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management

Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management’s 2026 wave 1 enhances supply and demand planning with price-demand correlation and capacity-to-promise (CTP) date protection. Supplier communication and engagement are streamlined, while warehousing gains AI-powered picking, inventory rebalancing, and hands-free scanning—driving supply chain efficiency.

Dynamics 365 Project Operations

Dynamics 365 Project Operations brings rich capabilities in 2026 release wave 1—from change order support and smarter project planning to smoother quoting, budgeting, and contract workflows. New enhancements streamline item consumption, mobile expense management, subscription billing, and modern-architecture migration—delivering connected project experience.

Dynamics 365 Commerce

Dynamics 365 Commerce strengthens business-to-business (B2B) with multi-outlet ordering, unified sign-in, outlet-specific catalogs, and built-in credit management to help reduce friction and protect cash flow. It modernizes order management and assisted-selling workflows in retail stores, helping to improve associate productivity, and customer experiences across channels. It also enables cross-legal-entity inventory lookup and flexible, attribute-based pricing to help accelerate mass updates and help drive higher sales.

Dynamics 365 Human Resources

Dynamics 365 Human Resources continues to advance in areas such as recruitment, onboarding, reporting, and integrated workforce management. By merging enhanced user experiences with broader ecosystem integration and expanding regional payroll collaborations, the platform enables organizations to optimize employee engagement, support operational accuracy, and confidently achieve their workforce objectives.

Finance and operations cross-app capabilities

Finance and operations cross-app capabilities will introduce new enhancements that strengthen the foundation for AI experiences across Dynamics 365. These updates include improvements to Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers, as well as the general availability of immersive home, which is an AI-powered workspace designed to help users stay focused and prioritize what matters most.

Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Data

Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Data acts as the grounding layer for CRM copilots and AI agents, delivering real‑time, unified customer profiles that help power accurate decisions. With enriched data, teams can act on insights directly in their workflow to deliver timely, personalized experiences that deepen engagement and drive better outcomes. The result is an AI-ready data core that elevates agents and helps deliver more connected, intelligent CRM experiences.

Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys

Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys empowers end-to-end, agentic customer engagements across sales, marketing, and service, allowing businesses to proactively react to customer behavior using Copilot and AI agents. With smarter orchestration tools, teams can deliver impactful campaigns at scale to drive stronger relationships, higher efficiency, and revenue growth. Part of Dynamics 365, every interaction within your organization benefits from shared data and consistent intelligence across Microsoft CRM applications.

Dynamics 365 Business Central

Dynamics 365 Business Central accelerates the move to agentic ERP with enhancements to our AI‑powered agents that automate sales and purchase scenarios in 2026 release wave 1. Alongside new business capabilities, we invest heavily in developer productivity to support extensibility—improving advanced language (AL) testing, debugging, Copilot extensibility, and agent design.

Highlights from Microsoft Power Platform and Microsoft Copilot Studio

2026 release wave 1 updates for Microsoft Power Platform deliver modernized app experiences across Power Apps and Power Pages, AI-powered automation and agent innovation in Power Automate and Copilot Studio, enhanced Dataverse intelligence and programmability, and strengthened governance, security, and cost management capabilities to help organizations build, scale, and manage intelligent solutions with confidence.

Power Apps

Power Apps continues to modernize app experiences with a refreshed model-driven user interface (UI), improved mobile and offline capabilities, streamlined search, and expanded AI features. This release brings standardized modern theming to everyone, real-time Dataverse access for offline-first canvas apps, enhanced search in grids and lookups, and broader availability and extensibility of generative pages to help teams build and scale intelligent apps faster.

Power Pages

Power Pages will further empower pro-developers and low-code makers to build intelligent business portals for your employees, customers, citizens, and partners through better integration with market leading AI tools. Additionally, enhanced security agent features will further support low-code makers, pro-developers, and admins with actionable insights and abilities for securing their websites.

Power Automate

Power Automate is Microsoft’s comprehensive automation platform for cloud flows, desktop flows, and process mining. This release introduces AI agent authoring, optimization, and self-healing capabilities for desktop flows, Copilot Studio-powered actions in cloud flows, enhanced maker and collaboration tools across both, general availability of object-centric process mining, and consolidated governance reporting.

Microsoft Copilot Studio

Microsoft Copilot Studiocontinues its journey to make agent and agentic workflows even easier to build and more powerful. Now you can further customize agents built with Agent Builder in Microsoft 365 Copilot, and power your automation with high value AI actions. Deeper governance, multi-agent orchestration, and evaluations enable further scaling. With connections to Microsoft Foundry and Work IQ, your agents can use the latest AI technology in coordination with your organizational data.

Microsoft Dataverse

Microsoft Dataverse continues to invest in enterprise-ready agentic and low-code data platform capabilities. The spotlight is on Work IQ and Copilot integration, delivering organization-specific decisions with adaptive learning and full auditability. We’re also enhancing agent programmability with Dataverse APIs, MCP servers, and Python SDK, plus new storage management tools for enterprise-grade compliance at scale.

Microsoft Power Platform governance and administration

Microsoft Power Platform governance and administrationintroduces admin controls for agent security, real-time risk assessment in Copilot Studio, and AI-powered governance agents that automate tenant monitoring and remediation in this release. Enhanced visibility into usage patterns, granular Copilot credit usage with pay-as-you-go (PAYG) caps, and connector dependencies help you optimize costs, demonstrate return on investment (ROI), and enforce compliance with organizational policies using features within the Power Platform Admin Center. GitHub integration and deploy from Git mature your application lifecycle management (ALM) practices with full audit trails.

Business Applications Update

Power Platform &

Copilot Studio edition

Watch on demand

Updates to role-based agents in Microsoft 365 Copilot

2026 release wave 1 updates for Microsoft role-based agents transform Sales Agent and Finance Agent in Microsoft 365 Copilot into intelligent daily command centers, helping to deliver richer, data-grounded insights, enhanced chat and mobile experiences, contextual support across Outlook and Teams, and strengthened governance and extensibility to help organizations drive productivity and scale AI responsibly.

Sales Agent

Sales Agent becomes the seller’s daily command center with richer Sales Chat and Sales Home experiences across desktop and mobile in 2026 release wave 1. Sellers will gain streamlined access to deal and account insights through configurable record summaries, contextual support in Outlook and Teams, and improved email and meeting intelligence. New governance and extensibility controls will also help organizations scale AI responsibly.

Finance Agent

Finance Agent helps finance professionals and their stakeholders interact with financial information from their ERP within the flow of work. In 2026 release wave 1, we continue expanding how this financial assistant supports common finance tasks such as reconciliation, variance analysis, and data preparation in Excel, as well as customer communications in Outlook. By bringing financial insights and assistance directly into familiar productivity tools, the Finance Agent helps teams investigate issues faster, respond to stakeholders more efficiently, and spend less time manually preparing or reconciling data so they can focus more on financial analysis and decision support.

For a complete list of new capabilities, please refer to the Dynamics 365 2026 release wave 1 plan, the Microsoft Power Platform 2026 release wave 1 plan, and role-based agents 2026 release wave 1. We also encourage you to share your feedback in the community forums for Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform.

Business Applications Update

The Business Applications Update offers an early preview of new capabilities coming in the months ahead. This refreshed structure is designed to reflect the reality of our time: innovation does not happen twice a year; it is constant. Whether you are a strategic leader or a hands-on practitioner, this new cadence is built to get you quickly up to speed.

• Watch on demand: Dynamics 365 Business Applications Update
• Watch on demand: Power Platform and Copilot Studio Business Applications Update

The post 2026 release wave 1 plans for Microsoft Dynamics 365, Microsoft Power Platform, and Copilot Studio offerings appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Retail Frontier Firms are evolving their operating models to keep pace with increasingly dynamic markets, using AI to support more responsive and resilient decision-making and execution across commerce channels. Rather than improving individual functions in isolation, these organizations are rethinking how commerce operates end to end, enabling AI agents to work alongside people to support faster, more consistent outcomes across the business. This evolution is accelerating as retailers navigate rising customer expectations, sustained margin pressure, volatile demand, and ongoing labor constraints: conditions that benefit from decisions being made and executed more continuously.

In Retail Frontier Firms, AI capabilities are embedded where decisions and value are created: in stores, at the digital shelf, across merchandising, pricing, fulfillment, customer service, and checkout. AI agents interpret signals from customers, inventory, suppliers, and channels and help coordinate actions across the enterprise. This supports retailers as they respond to change with greater speed, consistency, and scale across touchpoints.

This operating model is enabled by agents that share context and operate cohesively across the retail ecosystem. At the core of agentic commerce is Model Context Protocol (MCP), which provides AI agents with access to a shared, enterprise-grade understanding of products, inventory, pricing, policies, and customer intent. By grounding agents in a common business context, MCP helps support aligned, governed, and consistent decision-making across channels and functions. The future of retail is increasingly shaped by a human and AI agent operating model, connected by shared context and open protocols.

• Model Context Protocol (MCP) unlocks hundreds of thousands of business functions for secure, real-time use by agents, developers, and applications. 
• Agent Communication Protocol (ACP) enables agents across merchandising, supply chain, store operations, and service to collaborate end to end, helping reduce fragmentation and align execution across functions.
• Payment and transaction agent protocols extend AI capabilities through checkout and settlement, supporting trusted, compliant transactions across in-store, online, and conversational commerce.

Together, these capabilities support a more outcome-driven operating model focused on availability, margin, conversion, service levels, and loyalty. Humans define strategy, priorities, and guardrails, while AI agents help orchestrate execution across day-to-day operations: supporting modern retail operations designed for Commerce Anywhere.

Emerging retail trends shaping the future of commerce

As consumer expectations continue to rise, shoppers increasingly demand seamless, continuous interactions where they move effortlessly from social-commerce discovery to mobile checkout, in-store pickup, curbside fulfillment, or voice-activated reordering. Frontier retail responds to this shift by dissolving the boundaries between channels and touchpoints, allowing commerce to adapt in real time to customer intent, location, and context. For brands, this means the ability to deliver frictionless, anticipatory commerce at scale by meeting customers wherever they are, with relevance and speed, without adding operational complexity.

The industry is rapidly shifting away from static, siloed channels toward autonomous, context-aware agents that orchestrate buying journeys seamlessly across stores, digital experiences, and conversational interfaces. Agents move beyond traditional personalization. They actively guide product discovery, shape contextual offers, negotiate availability, and coordinate fulfillment, helping to continuously optimize inventory, pricing, promotions, and supply-chain decisions behind the scenes. As personalization and automation become table stakes, agentic AI emerges as the strategic engine driving scalable growth and sustainable Commerce Anywhere.

Introducing Microsoft Dynamics 365 Commerce MCP Server

Agentic commerce introduces a new operating model in which AI agents collaborate through MCP, enabling continuous decision-making and coordinated execution across the retail value chain. The new Dynamics 365 Commerce MCP Server exposes core retail business logic including catalog, pricing, promotions, inventory, carts, orders, and fulfillment as MCP-enabled capabilities. Expected to be in preview in February 2026, this will allow retailers to build agentic commerce experiences where AI agents can securely discover, decide, and execute retail workflows across digital, physical, and conversational channels.

By combining the ERP, Analytics, and Commerce MCP servers, Dynamics 365 supports a more agent-driven operating model in which front-office experiences and back-office operations are connected and optimized, helping retailers operate with greater agility and readiness for Commerce Anywhere.

How retailers can begin adopting agentic commerce today

Retail leaders can begin moving toward agentic commerce by adopting AI agents in three practical ways:

1. Starting with agents embedded in Dynamics 365
2. Extending capabilities through custom-built agents using MCP
3. Leveraging partner-built agents across the broader retail ecosystem

Together, these approaches allow retailers to progress at their own pace while aligning agent adoption to their operating model, business priorities, and maturity.

1. Start with agents embedded in Dynamics 365

Purpose-built agents are designed to address common retail challenges and operational friction points. Dynamics 365 agents and retail industry agents can be embedded directly into core business processes, allowing teams to realize value quickly.

Microsoft retail industry agents, like the Catalog Enrichment Agent and Personalized Shopping Agent are examples of vertical-specific agents designed around retail data models, workflows, and decision patterns that support scenarios like product discovery, assortment accuracy, and personalized engagement without requiring custom development.

Today, in Dynamics 365 the Supplier Communications Agent is a good example of embedded agents in action. Retailers can proactively monitor supply signals and engage suppliers in real time to confirm availability, align delivery timelines, and respond to changes earlier. This supports faster coordination, fewer surprises, and more reliable execution at scale.

2. Build custom agents using MCP

Retail operations are shaped by business logic that is unique to each organization: driven by merchandising strategies, store formats, service models, and supply-chain constraints. Microsoft Copilot Studio enables retailers to build custom AI agents that encode their own rules across replenishment, allocation, fulfillment, and store execution, aligning agent behavior directly to how the business operates.

These custom agents can operate across planning and selling in the flow of work using MCP-powered access to enterprise systems. Inside Microsoft Teams, Merchandising Managers and Planners can collaborate in real time with agents that access products, demand forecasts, supplier relationships, inventory, and pricing through Dynamics 365 ERP MCP.

On the selling side, through the Dynamics 365 Commerce MCP Server, your custom agents can extend intelligence into customer experiences. Agents can discover products, personalize offers, assess availability, reserve inventory, and complete transactions across digital, physical, and conversational channels while operating with a unified view of pricing, promotions, and fulfillment.

3. Extend agentic commerce through partners and the ecosystem

Retailers can further accelerate agent adoption by leveraging partner-built agents designed for specific retail scenarios and industries. Commerce MCP enables software development companies and system integrators to build agents more quickly by reducing integration overhead, standardizing access to retail data, and maintaining enterprise-grade trust and compliance.

Early partner solutions already demonstrate the breadth of what’s possible, from store associate productivity and clienteling to conversational commerce and business-to-business (B2B) buying experiences, including:

• Amicis: The Store Commerce Agent is a voice-first, screen-aware assistant designed for in-the-moment store execution. It can help associates complete high-friction tasks like returns, exchanges, order lookups, and policy checks in Dynamics 365 Commerce using natural voice commands, while adapting to what’s on the POS screen.
• Evenica: The B2B Licensee Product Request Agent uses conversational AI and image recognition to support licensees in finding beverage products. When a product is not available in the catalog, the agent can create a request case to support the product intake process.
• Argano: The Retail Clienteling Agent offers a conversational clienteling experience by bringing together customer insights, product data, and agentic AI into a single, governed workflow. It helps retail associates improve customer relationships by delivering personalized, brand-aligned interactions before, during, and after in-store appointments.
• Sunrise: The Commerce Companion is a suite of retail agents that help simplify everyday store operations across inventory and fulfillment to purchasing and store processes. Using natural language, it is designed to deliver fast, accurate answers and guided actions, which can enable associates to serve customers efficiently while keeping operations moving smoothly.
• Visionet: FashionGPT Agent can turn natural-language shopping intent into real-time retail execution across product, pricing, inventory, and promotions. It drives the end-to-end shopping journey and help turn conversations into measurable actions across channels.

Together, embedded agents, custom-built agents, and partner solutions give retailers flexible entry points into agentic commerce supporting near-term impact while laying the foundation for a more adaptive, AI-enabled operating model across Commerce Anywhere.

Agentic retail with Dynamics 365 in action at NRF 2026

At NRF, we will demonstrate how Dynamics 365 works with Copilot and agentic capabilities to support Commerce Anywhere and more efficient, end-to-end retail operations. We will share examples of how retailers are using Dynamics 365 to evolve their operating models and advance Frontier Firm capabilities.

Visit us during NRF expo hours at Level 3, Booth 4503, and join the related theater sessions at our booth:

• Beyond the Boutique: How Frette Uses AI to Transform Store Experience
  January 11, 2026 (Sunday), 2:00 PM ET
  Session led by Sunrise Technologies
• Reimagine retail business processes with Agentic ERP
  January 13, 2026 (Tuesday), 2:30 PM ET

The future of retail belongs to frontier organizations that can sense, decide, and act in real time. With agentic commerce enabled by Dynamics 365, retailers gain the foundation to move faster with confidence, aligning strategy, execution, and customer experience through intelligent agents that operate seamlessly across every channel. We look forward to connecting with you in New York and exploring how agentic business applications in Dynamics 365 can support your next step forward.

The post Agentic AI in retail: How Dynamics 365 powers Commerce Anywhere appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Our mission is to empower everyone to achieve more, and we design our products and services with enterprise-grade security, privacy, compliance, and transparency. As part of this commitment, we continue to evolve our offering to provide administrators with enhanced tools and reporting to optimize access and licensing within Dynamics 365 finance and operations applications.

On April 30, 2025, we delivered a set of enhancements to user license reporting in the Power Platform admin center, providing customers with comprehensive visibility into license usage across security roles. These improvements build on the momentum from our earlier investments in governance tools, as outlined in our March blog post on simplifying license management in Dynamics 365. Together, these updates are designed to help organizations better understand and manage their licensing footprint.

Microsoft is updating the timeline for in-app notifications and per-user license validation to give customers more time to prepare. To enable a smoother and more predictable experience, license validation will follow a staged rollout aligned with customer’s contract renewal or anniversary date. In parallel, we are introducing additional tools and reporting capabilities to increase transparency and improve the overall experience for customers managing their licensing footprint.

Why We’re Taking a Staged Approach

Starting January 15, 2026, license validation for Dynamics 365 finance and operations applications will begin for customers with contract renewals or anniversaries occurring after that date – refer to the FAQ to learn how this applies to your organization. This approach enables several important benefits:

• Proactive Engagement: Aligning validation with contract milestones helps customers plan to review user counts and licensing needs.
• Reduced Operational Impact: This timing allows organizations to plan and implement necessary adjustments with less likelihood of operational disruption.
• Scalable and Transparent: A staggered timeline provides better transparency when license validation occurs, helping customers plan ahead.

Note: Customers granted a grace period as described in this customer blog will continue to have that status honored.

To maintain continuous access and reduce disruptions in the future, we recommend organizations proactively review and assign licenses in advance.  Users without assigned licenses will no longer have access to these applications after technical validation until licenses are assigned and will instead receive prompts to request the appropriate licenses from their administrator.

Preparing for a Smooth Transition

To help customers confidently navigate the upcoming license validation process starting January 15, 2026, we’ve outlined clear steps to enable your organization to be prepared.

As we approach this important milestone, we encourage your administrator to: 

1. Understand licensing requirements: Review the licensing model for clarity on how security roles, duties, and privileges map to license types.
2. Review User Role and License Mapping: Use the Power Platform admin center or Dynamics Lifecycle Services reporting to generate a high-level summary of active users and respective license requirements.
3. Role to license optimization: Use the License Usage Summary Report in Dynamics 365 finance and operations to identify opportunities to optimize user role assignments by removing unnecessary entitlements or permissions.
4. Align license assignments in Microsoft 365 Admin Center: Provision and assign the appropriate licenses to users in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center, ensuring they match the license types mapped in the reports. If needed, make reservations or place supplemental orders for additional licenses.

Following this guidance will help facilitate a smooth transition and position your organization for success managing Dynamics 365 finance and operations licensing across your Microsoft Cloud solutions. This shift toward centralized license assignment underscores our commitment to simplifying administrative processes, providing greater visibility, security, and governance.

For additional information, use the following resources to continue adapting to the new modern reporting tools:

• Licensing Resources
• User security role reporting and technical validation for finance and operations apps FAQ​
• View license usage for finance and operations apps​
• Stay compliant with user licensing requirements​
• User security governance overview​

The post Simplifying License Management for Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations: Improved User License Validation appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

In today’s retail landscape, payments have evolved into a strategic inflection point—where customer expectations, brand trust, and operational efficiency converge. No longer just the final step in a transaction, payments shape the overall customer experience and directly influence conversion, satisfaction, and loyalty. As consumers engage across physical stores, mobile apps, and digital platforms, they demand seamless, secure, and flexible payment options tailored to their context. At the same time, as retailers expand into new geographies, they must navigate a complex landscape of local payment preferences, regulatory complexities, and asynchronous processing requirements. Retail payment innovations are clearly needed.

A New Solution in Partnership with Adyen

Meeting these demands requires a payment infrastructure that’s not only omnichannel and secure, but also globally adaptive—capable of scaling across geographies while delivering localized, compliant, and consistent checkout experiences. In short, payments are not just an operational necessity—they’re a growth lever and competitive differentiator in an increasingly borderless retail economy. Dynamics 365 Commerce, in partnership with Adyen, offers a native payment connector which enables retailers to meet this challenge head-on, offering a modern approach to payments that supports global expansion, operational efficiency and elevates customer experience. 

Adyen is a global payment platform serving almost 100 countries and expanding rapidly. It supports a wide range of payment methods across regions and channels—from credit cards and digital wallets to Pay by Bank (open banking) and BNPL providers. Its unified commerce approach allows retailers to consolidate payment processing, fraud prevention, and reporting into a single system. The payment connector to Adyen is maintained and continuously enhanced by the Dynamics 365 Commerce product team in close collaboration with Adyen, which not only reduces technical overhead, but delivers secure, flexible checkout experiences across both physical and digital storefronts.  Recent updates focus on enabling secure, mobile-ready operations—empowering retailers to offer greater payment flexibility to consumers while positioning their businesses for future geographic expansion. 

Let’s explore some of the latest retail payment innovations helping retailers achieve these strategic goals. 

Wallet Payments 

NFC based wallets like Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay have moved from novelty to necessity. These contactless options not only offer enhanced security through tokenization but also speed up checkout times significantly. In addition to NFC wallets, the QR code-based wallets like Alipay, WeChat Pay, PayPay etc. enhance customer convenience and satisfaction. These digital payment methods offer a fast, secure, and contactless way to complete transactions, catering to the growing preference for cashless payments. Dynamics 365 Commerce leverages Adyen to help the merchants easily enable these wallets, and attract a broader customer base, including tech-savvy shoppers and international tourists who rely on these platforms. 

Buy Now, Pay Later (BNPL) 

BNPL services have exploded in popularity, particularly among younger shoppers. By offering instant financing options at the point of sale, retailers can increase average transaction values while giving customers the flexibility they crave. Merchants using Dynamics 365 Commerce with Adyen connector can leverage BNPL providers such as Klarna and Affirm in stores which can help increase the Average Order Value without burdening the customer’s wallet. 

Mobility to In-Store Payments 

Enabling store associates to take payments wherever the customer significantly enhances the shopping experience by offering convenience and flexibility. This fundamentally changes the in-store experience by: 

• Reducing checkout lines and waiting times 

• Enabling personalized service where customers are, rather than forcing them to a central checkout 

• Allowing for immediate product information, inventory checks, and payment processing in a single interaction 

• Creating opportunities for clienteling and relationship-building throughout the shopping journey 

 A development in retail payments is the rise of using mobile phones for payment capture, particularly Apple’s Tap to Pay on iPhone. This technology transforms standard iPhones into payment terminals, eliminating the need for traditional POS hardware. Merchants can now run the Store Commerce application on iPhones and leverage Adyen connector to accept the NFC based card payments on the iPhones. 

 Similarly, Android-based All in one payment terminals such as Adyen’s Castle devices enables the retailers to run the Store Commerce app from Microsoft and capture card and wallet payments.  

Pay by Link 

The Tap to Pay on iPhone is great for NFC based card payments while Android Castle devices are great for all types of cards i.e., with or without NFC chips and QR code-based wallet payments, however, supporting local payment methods which require asynchronous processing is usually a challenge. These payment methods require the commerce solution to listen to payment notifications from the payment processor and process the transaction accordingly. Dynamics 365 Commerce now supports a new payment method from Adyen named Pay by Link which generates an Adyen hosted payment link. Opening the link directs the in-store customers to a secure checkout page on their phones, enabling various payment methods supported by Adyen, including the local payment methods which require asynchronous processing.  

It’s important to call out that the Pay by Link payment method does not require any specialized hardware such as payment terminal or special tablets and does not even require a hardware station which means that even the web-based cloud point of sale can accept digital payments without a need to maintain a hardware station in the store. Pay by Link can be very effective for line busting scenarios as the store associate can scan the customer items and generate a payment link for the customers and suspend the transaction. The customers can make a payment while in line and when they reach the cashier’s counter, the cashier can recall the suspended transaction, print receipts and complete the transaction. 

 Using these various options, Dynamics 365 Commerce empowers merchants to accept payments anywhere—from pop-up shops to home delivery—while maintaining brand consistency and security standards. These mobility options also enable a more efficient use of floor space and help merchants to rapidly scale operations for seasonal demands without investing in additional terminals. 

Intelligent payment routing: the hidden cost-saver 

While consumers rarely think about payment processing networks, retailers know that every transaction carries costs. When a customer uses a debit card, the transaction can potentially be processed through multiple networks. While many retailers default to major card networks, regional debit networks like STAR, NYCE, and PULSE often offer substantially lower interchange fees. 

Merchants using Dynamics 365 Commerce can now benefit from Adyen’s capability to automatically identify eligible transactions and route them through the most cost-effective network. A retail payment innovation resulting in significant savings for merchants —without any change to the customer experience. 

Productivity through consistent user experiences 

The benefits of modern payment solutions extend beyond the customer-facing advantages to significantly impact associate productivity. When store employees interact with a consistent, intuitive user interface across all point-of-sale functions, training time decreases while efficiency soars. 

Dynamics 365 Commerce now supports a unified payment experience across all payment methods. This enhancement is aimed at eliminating the cognitive burden of switching between different interfaces for various payment methods. Associates can move seamlessly from processing a standard credit card payment to handling a BNPL transaction or a gift card payment without missing a beat. This consistency reduces transaction errors, speeds up checkout times, and allows staff to focus on customer service rather than struggling with cumbersome payment processes.  

The new payment flow is really a step in the right direction. There are numerous options available today, whether it’s cryptocurrency, financing, or other digital payment methods. The ability to easily navigate payment is important for both our company and the customer. Everyone will have a preference and being able to accommodate that easily allows our staff to focus on the customer instead of trying to coordinate complex exchanges between systems. We see a lot of potential in this style of payment flow, streamlining the process and reducing unnecessary button grids.

– Chad Davison, IT Systems Team, Memory Express Inc. 

Embedded fraud protection: securing the transaction ecosystem 

As retail payment innovations evolve, so do the tactics of fraudsters. Retailers with robust fraud protection not only minimize direct losses but also preserve customer trust. Dynamics 365 Commerce now enables the merchants to leverage the built-in risk management capabilities in Adyen for ecommerce and Pay by Link transactions. Any fraudulent transaction prevented represents both saved revenue and a protected customer relationship.   

Enabling post-visit and remote payment experiences 

Dynamics 365 Commerce continues to expand its support for asynchronous payments, aiming to give merchants greater flexibility in how and when customers complete transactions. One such planned future enhancement is the ability for store associates to generate orders—including shipping details—and send a secure payment link to the customer, enabling them to finalize the purchase at their convenience. If payment isn’t completed within a specified timeframe, the system can automatically cancel the order and release the inventory. 

This approach supports more flexible purchasing journeys, for example, when a customer needs time to consider a larger purchase. Future enhancements also aim to extend this capability to call centers, allowing representatives to send secure payment links instead of collecting payment information over the phone. This would support additional modern payment methods and improve both security and customer experience for remote transactions. 

Bringing It All Together 

Retailers making the most of today’s retail payment innovations often take a unified approach, treating technologies like digital wallets, BNPL, Pay by Link, and mobile SoftPOS not as isolated tools but as components of a cohesive payment strategy. With support for these capabilities, along with Adyen’s built-in risk management and intelligent routing features, Dynamics 365 Commerce helps merchants design payment experiences that can enhance convenience, improve operational flexibility, and support security standards. 

As the payment landscape continues to evolve, success will hinge not on selecting a single technology, but on integrating multiple options to align with customer preferences and operational needs. By building a flexible, future-ready payment foundation, retailers can better adapt to changing expectations and create experiences driving efficiency and customer satisfaction. Learn more about other retail payment innovations, along with what is new and what is coming to Dynamics 365 Commerce in our release planner.  

The post Next-Gen Retail Payments: Trends, Tech, and Transformation using Dynamics 365 Commerce + Adyen  appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

We’re entering the age of AI agents, a transformative moment reshaping the landscape of business applications and platforms. AI agents aren’t just making incremental improvements, they’re helping to redefine productivity and can fundamentally change how work gets done.

Published today, the 2025 release wave 2 for Microsoft Dynamics 365, Microsoft Power Platform, and Copilot offerings introduces new and improved capabilities that help organizations to harness the full potential of this new era. These plans compile new capabilities slated for release between October 2025 and March 2026.
Integral to the wave 2 plans, AI assistants and agents not only help humans with day-to-day tasks, but also act as proactive partners to drive better business outcomes. Our upcoming release brings that vision to life, helping to make AI not just accessible but an essential component in daily operations. Whether it’s enabling sellers to close deals faster, providing service teams real-time trusted knowledge, or empowering finance professionals with AI-driven reconciliation and analysis, these enhancements can be transformative to the way we all work.

Be sure to stay updated on the latest features and create your personalized release plan using the release planner.

Highlights from Dynamics 365

The 2025 release wave 2 for Dynamics 365 brings new innovation to transform functions across your business.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Data enhances Microsoft Copilot and agents with real-time, unified customer profiles, enabling teams to act on insights within their workflow. With enriched data, seamless platform integration, and faster processing, businesses can deliver timely, personalized experiences that boost engagement and conversions.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights – Journeys empowers businesses to craft personalized, AI-driven customer experiences across all touchpoints. With Copilot, agents, and enhanced orchestration tools, teams can engage the right audiences at scale, streamline lead generation, and accelerate growth.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales brings the power of AI to help sellers achieve their targets and automate busywork. Microsoft Copilot delivers actionable insights in the flow of work, while AI agents research and engage leads, drive purchase intent, and proactively bring key insights and emergent deal risks—helping sellers close more deals faster. A reimagined interface reorients sellers from data to insights. Watch this video to discover the new and enhanced features in this release wave for Dynamics 365 Sales.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service continues to enhance agentic and Copilot capabilities for case and knowledge management, as well as AI-driven routing.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Contact Center continues to enhance agentic and Copilot capabilities to automate the service journey across digital and voice channels, along with the introduction of new omnichannel and supervisor capabilities in the 2025 release wave 2.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service will deliver AI agents, enhanced scheduling tools, mobile usability improvements, and deeper Microsoft 365 integration in the upcoming release wave. With innovations across inspections, vendor coordination, and connectivity with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations, Field Service empowers organizations to deliver smarter, faster, and more seamless service at scale.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance brings global-scale finance and agentic operations to our customers, including agents that can lead to faster financial close, and provide additional automation and optimization across large scale operations, as well as enhancements to business performance analytics and planning solutions.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management can enhance demand planning with event and promotion forecasting, and help improve quality management for sample handling; and the Supplier Communications Agent will automate vendor interactions. New supplier engagement tools and warehouse app upgrades will also be introduced to further streamline operations and boost efficiency.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations will continue to deliver powerful enhancements across the project lifecycle. These include improved mobile and browser experiences for time and expense, better project planning with enterprise custom fields, streamlined billing and invoicing workflows, and expanded support for stocked items, investment projects, and migrations to the modern architecture.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Human Resources can enhance the hire-to-retire journey with Microsoft Entra ID and Microsoft Viva Connections integration to help reduce duplication. New agentic capabilities will be introduced to streamline onboarding with guided experiences and automation. Recruiter assist will also now support job description generation and interview assistance, helping to improve efficiency across hiring and onboarding.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Commerce advances in-store experiences by providing a mobile-first point-of-sale that provides business continuity even during a business outage. Improvements to the Adyen payment connector allows modern payments like Pay by Link across channels, offering more purchasing options for omnichannel customers. Additionally, omnichannel unified pricing enables retailers to establish more intricate pricing structures, helping them remain competitive.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central introduces AI agents to enhance efficiency and automation in the 2025 release wave 2. These agents seamlessly integrate to execute complex tasks, generate reports, automate processes, and optimize order creation using natural language processing. Additionally, this release focuses on quality management, subcontracting, sustainability, and e-document capabilities.

Highlights from Microsoft Power Platform and Microsoft Copilot Studio

2025 release wave 2 updates for Microsoft Power Platform bring new and updated ways for organizations to analyze, act on, and automate data to digitally transform their businesses.

Microsoft Copilot Studio continues its journey to make agent creation and operation even easier and more powerful with autonomous agents in Microsoft 365 Copilot, the ability to build complete teams of agents that work seamlessly together, and improved governance for enterprise scalability. Copilot Studio will offer even deeper integration with Azure AI Foundry and the Microsoft Graph, helping to ensure your agents can use the latest AI technology in coordination with your data in Microsoft Graph. Watch this video to discover how the latest enhancements to Copilot Studio can benefit your business.

Microsoft Power Apps enhances human and agent collaboration with a new agent feed to supervise the work of agents and extensible built-in agents for common tasks like enter, explore, visualize, and summarize data. Bring business problems to Plan Designer and a team of agents will help you build enterprise solutions, including apps, agents, Microsoft Power BI reports, and more. Vibe code with the App Agent to create data-connected experiences—just describe what you need or provide an image, and it can be done.

Microsoft Power Pages enables businesses to build secure, data-driven portals effortlessly. In this wave, we will further expedite site building for low-code makers and pro developers to help build intelligent sites for your employees, customers, and partners. The introduction of enhanced security agent features will further empower low-code makers, pro developers, and admins with actionable insights and abilities for securing their websites.

Microsoft Power Automate is transforming how enterprises automate complex business processes through new human-in-the-loop experiences, such as advanced approvals and AI-native capabilities, such as generative actions and intelligent document processing. To manage complex automations at scale, a comprehensive suite of governance, observability, and security controls will be introduced to the Automation Center and Power Platform admin center.

Microsoft Dataverse continues to serve as a trusted low-code data platform, enabling the creation of scalable agents, Copilot applications, and automations. This update introduces enhancements to core agentic capabilities, including Dataverse for Agents and Dataverse Search to support smarter, AI-ready experiences. New features such as Dataverse Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server and AI-powered business logic tools further expand the ability to build dynamic, intelligent solutions grounded in enterprise data.

Microsoft Power Platform governance and administration will become the unified governance hub for managing intelligent agents, agent-driven apps, and automated workflows across the Microsoft ecosystem in this release wave. This will provide a secure, governable, reliable platform for agent development.

Updates to Copilot offerings

Agents for Microsoft 365 Copilot help maximize business impact across sales, service, and finance. Learn more about the 2025 release wave 2 updates for Copilot offerings. Agent updates for sales will help sellers work smarter, engage strategically, and close deals faster. Agent updates for service will expand CRM connectivity and enhance email insights and drafting—all within the tools reps use daily. Updates for finance will offer easily customizable agents that can be launched from familiar tools like Excel, boosting efficiency and insight.

Early access period

Starting August 4, 2025, customers and partners can validate the latest features in a non-production environment. These updates include user experience enhancements that will be automatically enabled in production environments by October 2025. Take advantage of the early access period to test these updates and effectively plan for your customer rollout. Explore the 2025 release wave 2 early access features for Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform or visit the early access FAQ page for more information.

For a complete list of new capabilities, please refer to the Dynamics 365 2025 release wave 2 plan, the Microsoft Power Platform 2025 release wave 2 plan, and Copilot offerings 2025 release wave 2. We also encourage you to share your feedback in the community forums for Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform.

The post 2025 release wave 2 plans for Microsoft Dynamics 365, Microsoft Power Platform, and Role-based Microsoft Copilot offerings appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

The next wave of innovation for Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform starts today. This morning, at the Microsoft Business Applications Launch Event, we are officially launching the 2025 release wave 1, a six-month rollout of new and enhanced capabilities that will be rolled out between April 2025 and September 2025.

This release wave comes at an exciting moment, in a year marked by rapid advancements in AI. Microsoft Copilot and agents are at the heart of this release wave, promising to transform how we all work and to help elevate organizations into AI-first companies. New Copilot and agent capabilities showcased at today’s event will help you to improve business processes, enhance customer engagement, and empower your workforce to automate tasks.

Watch the Microsoft Business Applications Launch Event to hear directly from product teams as they share demos and real customer stories that showcase the newest features in action. Companies like Eneco, Intralox, Apollo Travel, Murdoch’s Ranch & Home Supply, Pro Refrigeration Incorporated, and State Farm are leveraging these features to drive transformation.

Create your own autonomous agents with Microsoft Copilot Studio

In this release wave, Copilot and agents take center stage with even more functionalities to help organizations transform their operations and deliver exceptional customer experiences. At the event, we are showcasing custom agents that can autonomously conduct a range of processes across sales, service, finance and supply chain functions.

Microsoft Copilot Studio serves as the foundation for agents, making it easy to customize and build your own customer and internal facing agents using your data and workflows. In addition, upcoming pre-built agents for Dynamics 365 are ready to customize and launch, accelerating your time to value. Stay tuned for blog updates and deep dives about Copilot and agent capabilities during this release wave.     

Transform customer experiences with AI agents

AI is transforming every aspect of customer experience, from rethinking user experience and business processes to the way apps are built and maintained. The 2025 release wave 1 features Dynamics 365 customer experience apps designed to help you deliver connected and personalized experiences for customers.  

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales brings the power of AI to help sellers meet their targets while boosting seller productivity. Copilot and agents enhance performance and simplify tasks to help grow your pipeline, sharpen strategies, and accelerate deals. A re-imagined user experience ensures sellers never miss the best move to close a deal. And automated research, ongoing follow-ups, and prioritized tasks provide continuous guidance—allowing you to focus on the right actions to drive success and grow your business. 

Dynamics 365 Sales introduces new Copilot and agent capabilities to research and prioritize inbound leads, initiate sales conversations, and develop personalized sales engagements. These features help your teams to simplify tasks to help grow your pipeline, sharpen strategies, and accelerate deals.

During the launch event, we showcase how Intralox, an industry leader in complex conveyance solutions, is leveraging the sales qualification agent in Dynamics 365 Sales to help qualify leads, build stronger relationships with customers, and close deals faster.

New functionalities for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Contact Center include Microsoft Teams phone integration, which helps to reduce telephony complexity, proactive conversational journeys, and three agents that work in concert to create an autonomous contact center. These agents automate intent determination, manage the case lifecycle from creation to closure, and convert cases and related conversations into knowledge articles to support your contact center operations.

Learn how Apollo Travel, a subsidiary of European travel leader Dertour Group, is using Dynamics 365, Microsoft Power Platform, Microsoft Copilot, and agents to automate a range of processes—from generating hotel descriptions to developing chatbots for case summarization. In addition, using Dynamics 365 Contact Center with Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, Apollo Travel can now leverage custom-built agents to proactively reach out to customers with personalized recommendations, adding value to the customer’s travels and opportunities for upselling additional services. This experience is enabled through new proactive engagement activities such as SMS or phone calls, helping to create personalized journeys in real-time.

Explore the release plans for:

• Dynamics 365 Customer Service
• Dynamics 365 Contact Center
• Dynamics 365 Sales

Optimize workflows with autonomous ERP

Today’s launch also showcases innovation across ERP solutions that is leading organizations into a new era of autonomous operations—where humans and agents work together to drive increased efficiency across business processes.

To support autonomous financial operations, Dynamics 365 Finance introduces the Account Reconciliation Agent, along with a new financial task workspace to help teams manage and track recurring processes like period close with greater structure and visibility.

In Dynamics 365 Project Operations, new capabilities will simplify time, expense, and approvals; accelerate scenario planning with what-if analysis; and improve planning accuracy with customizable task details. Dynamics 365 Human Resources will add AI-powered candidate assessment to help hiring teams identify top applicants faster by comparing resumes to job requirements, and a new onboarding agent that guides new hires through personalized onboarding journeys directly within Microsoft Teams.​

In Dynamics 365 Commerce and Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, we’re delivering new tools to enhance pricing strategy and procurement efficiency. Unified pricing management enables organizations to centralize omnichannel pricing across segmentation, channel-specific rules, and price trees. At the launch event, we showcase how Murdoch’s Ranch & Home Supply is using the new Supplier Communications Agent in Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management to reduce manual vendor follow-ups and improve purchase order accuracy.​

We also feature how Pro Refrigeration Incorporated is using the Sales Order Agent in Dynamics 365 Business Central to process customer orders faster and improve responsiveness. Business Central also adds the integration with Dynamics 365 Field Service, new Copilot summarization capabilities and Scope 3 emissions tracking to help organizations meet sustainability goals.

Updates include Copilot-first experiences in Dynamics 365 Finance to streamline complex tax and compliance management and automate account and bank reconciliations using intelligent agents. Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management introduces integrated AI, analytics, and automation features to improve operational efficiency, enhanced supplier communication, demand planning accuracy, and intelligent manufacturing features that align production data to real-world processes.

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central also adds the integration of Field Service with service management, as well as the ability to enhance purchase order line matching with Copilot.  

Explore the release plans for:

• Dynamics 365 Finance
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Commerce
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 Human Resources
• Dynamics 365 Business Central

Redefine development: AI-first innovation in Microsoft Power Platform

Microsoft Power Platform continues to empower everyone to build their own AI-powered solutions through low-code or no-code tools with new features. Microsoft Power Apps is changing how software solutions are built with plan designer, enabling makers to build an end-to-end solution plan from simply describing their business problems, generating business requirements, data tables, and suggested solution architecture. 

Microsoft Copilot Studio brings together the best AI innovations into a single low-code agent platform so that you can build amazing things. New capabilities like Agent Flows and Deep Reasoning expand the frontier of agents you can build, while new text and generative AI tools give you the ability to direct agents in specialized ways. The general availability of triggers and generative orchestration enables new categories of autonomous agents to transform business processes. We also are introducing more tools to optimize your agents including new diagnostics, testing, and performance analytics.

Explore the release plans for:

• Microsoft Power Apps
• Microsoft Power Pages
• Microsoft Power Automate
• Microsoft Copilot Studio

Watch the virtual Microsoft Business Applications Launch Event

Watch the Microsoft Business Applications Launch Event to discover the latest in Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform. You’ll get access to in-depth demos of new autonomous agents and other capabilities designed to optimize your workflows and streamline operations.

Don’t forget to review the detailed release plans for Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform. Stay updated on the latest features and upcoming enhancements, and create your personalized release plan using the release planner to ensure you’re equipped with the knowledge needed to maximize on this new release wave.

We look forward to seeing how capabilities in this release wave enhance your business processes and bring new levels of efficiency and customer success.  

The post 2025 release wave 1 brings hundreds of updates to Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Power Platform appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

We’ve launched 2024 release wave 2 for Microsoft Dynamics 365, Microsoft Power Platform, and role-based Microsoft Copilot offerings—introducing a rollout of new features and enhanced capabilities releasing between October 2024 and March 2025. These updates include advanced Copilot capabilities for Microsoft 365 Copilot for Sales, Copilot for Service, and Copilot for Finance to empower your workforce, optimize business processes, and enhance customer engagement.

Catch all the highlights and demos from today’s Microsoft Business Applications Launch Event. In addition to newly-announced features, you’ll learn how companies like Lynk & Co, Lifetime Products, Stoneridge Software, AIS, and Schneider Electric are leveraging these new features to drive transformation.

Copilot and agents are the future of AI for business

2.1 million users engage with Copilot across Microsoft business applications every month, including employees at companies like PayPal, HP, Lumen, and McKinsey & Company. These Copilot experiences can drive new levels of productivity and efficiency while offering high standards of privacy, security, and compliance.

Moving forward, we envision AI-first organizations will comprise people, Copilot, and agents. Copilot is your AI assistant, designed to work for you. With Microsoft Copilot Studio, you can create, manage, and connect agents to Copilot. Organizations will have a network of agents, ranging from simple prompt-and-response systems to fully autonomous entities, that will operate on behalf of individuals, teams, or functions to execute and orchestrate business processes. Copilot serves as the interface for interacting with these agents, which can handle tasks such as accelerating lead generation, processing sales orders, and automating supply chains. At the Business Applications Launch Event, we showcased new features across Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform that demonstrate what’s possible with Copilot and agents.

Thrive with customer experience applications

2024 release wave 2 brings exciting new features to Dynamics 365 customer experience apps designed to deliver connected and personalized experiences for both customers and employees. These innovations focus on optimizing customer interactions and streamlining sales processes across your organization.

New capabilities for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Contact Center, and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales include a multilingual bot (supported languages), Copilot-generated prompts, in-line email functionality, and more. These features are set to transform how businesses engage with customers and manage internal processes.

During the launch event, we showcased how Lynk & Co, an innovative car company, is leveraging the multilingual Copilot Studio bot in Dynamics 365 Customer Service. By using AI-powered voice recognition and Copilot-generated prompts, they’ve been able to optimize customer wait times and improve case resolution speed. These tools have enabled Lynk & Co to significantly reduce case review times while keeping their sales team in the loop, thanks to seamless data sharing between service and sales teams.

With Copilot’s intelligent automation, sales managers at Lynk & Co can now focus on building customer relationships rather than manually sorting through documents. By streamlining workflows and providing actionable insights, Copilot empowers sales professionals to work more efficiently and drive business growth. These new capabilities—combined with tools like real-time prompts, the Sales Qualification Agent, and account summaries generated by Copilot—offer businesses a modern, intuitive way to stay connected with customers and make smarter decisions faster.

Explore the release plans for Dynamics 365 Customer Service, Dynamics 365 Contact Center, and Dynamics 365 Sales.

Defining autonomous enterprise resource planning (ERP) with innovative agents

Microsoft Dynamics 365 ERP solutions introduce significant enhancements aimed at improving both core functionalities and autonomous capabilities. These updates include the introduction of five autonomous agents for Dynamics 365 designed to streamline processes and boost organizational efficiency. By automating routine tasks, businesses can focus more on strategic decision-making and adapt to the dynamic market landscape.

For Lifetime Products, a leading global producer of outdoor consumer goods, these improvements have substantially enhanced the productivity of their finance team. The Account Reconciliation Agent for Dynamics 365 Finance autonomously identifies discrepancies between subledgers and ledgers, offering actionable recommendations and reducing manual effort. Additionally, automated bank reconciliation now matches transactions and summarizes histories, saving time and improving accuracy. These features have streamlined their month-end close process across multiple legal entities, enhancing both efficiency and compliance.

In parallel, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central updates have improved operations for more than 40,000 customers. The Sales Order Agent enables businesses like Stoneridge Software’s clients to manage sales orders without needing additional staffing, speeding up order processing while maintaining service quality. Interoperability between Dynamics 365 Business Central and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service has streamlined service order management, reducing manual data entry and errors. This automation allows technicians to work more efficiently, improving the overall customer experience and ensuring timely service delivery.

Explore the release plans for Dynamics 365 Finance, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Commerce, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Human Resources, and Dynamics 365 Business Central.

Unlock value everywhere with Microsoft Power Platform and Copilot Studio

Microsoft Power Platform offers new capabilities that enhance automation and app development using AI-powered tools. Copilot simplifies workflows, generates apps, and assists with complex processes, enabling businesses to manage tasks more effectively. With new AI-driven features across Microsoft Power Platform you can create solutions across your organization in record time.

At the launch event, we highlighted how Applied Information Sciences (AIS) is improving workforce efficiency in vendor invoice management using AI-enabled features in Microsoft Power Automate. With Copilot, automating processes such as routing and approvals based on predefined rules, AIS can handle a large volume of invoices daily, reducing manual input and increasing productivity. Users can easily update workflows with a few clicks, and the new summary functionality ensures clear tracking and sharing of updates.

AIS’s onboarding process for new consultants supports ongoing training with Copilot in Microsoft Power Apps. “Search with Copilot” allows users to retrieve records using natural language queries, while the AI-enabled paste feature efficiently fills out onboarding forms, reducing manual data entry. Copilot Studio improves IT Helpdesk automation with task assignment and grounding third-party data sources through knowledge management.  This provides analytics for monitoring agent performance and improves accuracy while also enabling a continuous improvement process.

Explore the release plans for Power Apps, Microsoft Power Pages,  Power Automate, and Copilot Studio.  

Bring automation to your business with Copilot

The latest improvements in Microsoft 365 Copilot for Sales, Copilot for Service, and Copilot for Finance focus on enhancing user experience by automating routine tasks and providing actionable insights through autonomous agents. These advanced functionalities allow sales teams, customer service representatives, and finance professionals to offload repetitive activities, enabling them to concentrate on strategic initiatives. As a result, organizations can optimize efficiency and improve overall productivity.

For instance, companies like Lumen and Genpact have experienced significant time savings with Microsoft 365 Copilot for Sales and Microsoft 365 Copilot for Finance capabilities. Lumen reported a 94% reduction in research time for sales data, while Genpact achieved over a 50% decrease in payroll processing time through automated reconciliation. These enhancements demonstrate how Copilot agents are not only improving workflows but also positively impacting the workforce’s efficiency.

Schneider Electric is another example of a company benefiting from these advancements. Its sales team can now effectively prioritize leads with the help of the Lead Intelligence Agent, which analyzes customer interactions and external data to deliver enriched insights. This streamlined approach allows sales representatives to engage with prospects more strategically, ultimately supporting their goal of enhancing efficiency and driving revenue growth.

Explore the release plans for Microsoft Copilot for Finance, Microsoft Copilot for Service, and Microsoft Copilot for Sales.

Business Applications Launch Event

Dive deeper into the new and enhanced AI capabilities included in the 2024 release wave 2.

Learn more

Watch the virtual Microsoft Business Applications Launch Event

Join us for the on-demand Microsoft Business Applications Launch Event to discover the latest enhancements in Dynamics 365, Microsoft Power Platform, and Microsoft Copilot apps. The event features in-depth demos of new autonomous agents and other capabilities designed to optimize your workflows and streamline operations.

Don’t forget to review the detailed release plans for Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform. Stay updated on the latest features and upcoming enhancements, and create your personalized release plan using the release planner to ensure you’re equipped with the knowledge needed to maximize these new capabilities.

The post 2024 release wave 2 launches with hundreds of Copilot capabilities appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.