Mike Morton kicked off Directions NA, an annual conference for Dynamics 365 Business Central partners, with a focused message – Microsoft is reshaping how businesses function through AI. Morton, VP of Business Central at Microsoft, discussed in detail how agents in Business Central are helping all users complete end-to-end processes more efficiently.

With sales order agents, users can create sales quotes without having to manually type in items or generate outbound emails. Built in agents will automatically find the item number, write email responses, create pdfs – all while searching for any issues or fraud that should be brought to the users’ attention. These agents make each scenario as rich as possible, helping employees to focus on what is most important.

The Payables agent in Business Central uses AI to automate the full process of capturing purchase invoices from vendors and intelligently suggests registration according to accounting principles. It begins by sourcing the electronic documents from emails, SharePoint, or OneDrive. It automatically checks for relevance, processes the document, detects and deflects irrelevant email content, automatically resolves errors when possible, and then brings humans into the cycle to validate before posting the purchase invoice.

Microsoft announced there are now 45,000 customers running on Business Central today. Leaders from Microsoft doubled down on their vision to revolutionize the way business is run with Business Central and AI, noting that AI is disrupting business at its core.

Bryan Goode, Corporate Vice President for Business Applications and Platform Marketing at Microsoft discussed the rapid adoption of LLMS (Large Language Models) among users. While adoption of the mobile phone took 16 years, the internet 7 years, Facebook 4.5 years – AI adoption has happened in only 3 months.

Goode discussed how AI is dramatically accelerating business value – especially in the start up community. When the SaaS wave first hit, the average time to annual recurring revenue of $1M for startups was 15 months. Now with AI, the average timeline is 5 months.

With AI taking hold across all businesses, it is transforming every function and every process. And for Microsoft users, Copilot is the UI for AI.

What does that mean for how we organize work?

Three stages of transformation are already happening.

The more you embrace each level the more dramatic the ROI outcome.

With AI, we’re seeing business applications being reinvented. Before, legacy business applications were fragile with brittle workflows and siloed data. In the new world of AI first, these business applications are now enriched with knowledge from across the organization to help you address common tasks and have a holistic understanding of all priorities and activities across your business.

Microsoft’s first AI enriched business application is Dynamics 365 Business Central. With Copilot integrated, along with prebuilt agents, these connect directly to your data to streamline your workflows.

AI in Dynamics 365 is able to transform every function and process across your organization.

Customer Service

• Self help
• Support assignment
• Issue diagnosis
• Problem resolution
• Continuous improvement

Sales

• Customer self-service
• Lead generation
• Customer engagement
• Negotiations and closing
• Post-sale follow-up and upsell
• Sales analysis and forecasting

Finance

• Quote to cash
• Record to report
• Tax and treasury
• Planning and analysis
• Risk management and compliance
• Procure-to-pay

Marketing

• Customer insights and strategy
• Demand generation
• Content creation
• Campaign execution
• Predictive analysis
• Personalization
• Sales enablement and recommendation

HR

• Employee engagement
• Recruiting
• HR admin and payroll
• Compensation and benefits
• Learning and development
• Talent management
• HR strategy and planning

Legal

• Regulatory and compliance management
• Contracting
• Risk management
• Litigation
• Consultation
• Intellectual property
• Advisory services

IT

• Data management
• Software management and acquisition
• Device management
• IT operations
• Network operations
• Information security

The main message from Microsoft? The time is now.

• Transition to the cloud
• Take advantage of AI

Early results of the impact of AI are clear. The companies who are taking advantage of AI and Copilot agents in Business Central are achieving revenue goals faster and seeing nearly immediate ROI.

Set up a time to discuss your AI strategy with the Copilot experts at Velosio. Schedule time with us today.