The working world is changing. Many organisations are struggling to keep their customer relationship management (CRM) systems up to speed with the evolving expectations of modern customers, the needs of the people managing those relationships or the call for digital transformation in line with new technology.
Modernising CRM systems can be challenging. One of the most common pain points is caused by organisations having disparate legacy systems and data silos. Legacy systems often sit apart from the tools employees use every day, which can result in inconsistent data and a disconnected experience.
“Legacy CRM systems often rely heavily on manual data entry,” says Nitasha Chopra, vice president and chief operating officer of business applications at Microsoft in an online blog post titled ‘Agentic CRM systems: Learnings from organizations making the switch’. “They’re difficult to adapt as businesses grow and are frequently designed more for reporting than for allowing sellers, marketers and service teams to succeed in real time. While this may have sufficed when field reps had hours between customer visits or when service agents had time to type up detailed call notes, these conditions no longer exist.”
Nitasha Chopra is vice presidnet and chief operating officer of business applications at Microsoft
Enter Microsoft Dynamics 365. The platform has long been a cornerstone of business operations by providing organisations with comprehensive CRM and enterprise resource planning (ERP) capabilities that empower employees to complete everyday tasks.
The platform is built with AI at its core, so organisations can keep pace with ever-evolving business transformation trends. The embedded Microsoft Copilot generative AI capabilities also help sellers and customer service agents work smarter by generating content, surfacing insights and summarising customer interactions.
For example, when Microsoft’s human resources (HR) team sought out a solution to unify its knowledge base, it turned to Microsoft Copilot in Dynamics 365 Customer Service.
The solution is helping the HR team to find information quickly and answer employee questions accurately. Since adoption, the team has seen a reported 20 per cent increase in employee customer service case throughput, along with a 16 per cent boost in Dynamics 365 Copilot satisfaction.
“Copilot transforms lengthy information sources into one crisp, easily digested answer,” says Mike Morales, senior service advisor in HR services at Microsoft. “Despite our diverse employee population, we can supply the personalised answers each person wants.”
Agentic AI – autonomous systems that act on behalf of users – is taking these capabilities one step further by automating repetitive tasks and allowing teams to focus on what truly matters; building relationships and closing deals.
“Together, copilots and agents can accelerate your business outcomes,” says Chopra. “For example, imagine a sales rep preparing for a big client meeting. Copilot can pull together a summary of recent customer interactions, generate a tailored pitch based on account details and suggest case studies that may be relevant to the customer. Meanwhile, an AI agent is working in the background, logging customer enquiries, triggering follow-up tasks, and updating the sales pipeline based on real-time interactions.”
US-based gardening products retailer Gardens Alive, has been using Dynamics 365 since 2022 to unify its finance, CRM and supply chain data. In 2023, it adopted Dynamics 365 Customer Service to automate the categorisation of customer queries from different channels and improve customer satisfaction. This automation increased Gardens Alive’s email processing rate by seven per cent.
Following this, Gardens Alive rolled out the Digital Messaging add-in for Dynamics 365 Customer Service. One of the features of this add-in is the addition of AI-driven chatbots created with Power Virtual Agents, which allow the retailer’s customers to access a self-service chatbot built on the data stored in Dynamics 365. Since adopting Digital Messaging, Gardens Alive has noticed bot escalation to live agents has reduced from 50 to 31 per cent, and with future enhancements the team expects it to decrease to 20 per cent.
Ensuring responsible AI adopting is a priority in every use case, and Microsoft is dedicated to helping organisations realise this.
“The AI capabilities in Dynamics 365 are developed with a steadfast commitment to trustworthy AI, guided by our responsible AI principles of fairness, reliability and safety, privacy and security, inclusiveness, transparency and accountability,” says Jeff Comstock, corporate vice president of Dynamics 365. “In addition, generative AI features in Dynamics 365 utilise Microsoft Azure OpenAI Service, which offers the highest levels of data privacy and security. By developing AI that is responsible and secure by design, we’re furthering our mission to help every person and organisation on the planet achieve more.”
Microsoft is consistently delivering updates and features to Dynamics 365 to drive productivity and new methods of working for its users. For instance, it introduced the new Model Context Protocol (MCP) servers for Dynamics 365 at Microsoft Build 2025. The MCP servers were designed to remove the work involved in connecting systems together to build AI-powered agents, making it easier for users to leverage the technology quicker.
More new features are due for release between October 2025 and March 2026, including AI functionality and capabilities across Dynamics 365 Sales, Customer Service, Contact Center, Finance, Supply Chain Management and more.
Feedback shared by customers at events such as Community Summit help Microsoft to refine products and solutions. The event not only supports the Dynamics 365 user experience but also gathers feedback on how the platform functions directly from the people using it daily.
“These users don’t just adopt the technology, they refine it, challenge it and push it forwards,” says John Seifert, CEO of Dynamics Communities, which hosts Community Summit. “Their real-world feedback influences product updates, roadmap direction and innovation cycles. This ongoing dialogue between Microsoft and its community ensures that AI business solutions continue to evolve based on user needs.”
Seifert has seen first hand how both generative and agentic AI has redefined the Dynamics 365 experience.
“We’re seeing a major shift from exploration to adoption, with organisations building agents in Copilot Studio or Azure AI Foundry to drive sales, service, finance and supply chains,” he explains. “At the core of this transformation is a scalable, cloud-based data platform agents work from, and Copilot creates reports and guidance on. Short-term wins have seen Copilot automate tasks, boost productivity and personalise customer interactions, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. This is not a trend; it’s the new way businesses run.”
This year’s Community Summit will take place on 19-23 October in Orlando, Florida, USA. There will be over 600 education sessions at the event, and more than 100 of these will be dedicated to AI agents and Copilot, with a focus on real-world use cases, configuration, change management and return on investment.
“Our programming committees, made up of users and experts who live and breathe these solutions, shape the content based on real needs and lessons learned,” says Seifert. “Attendees walk away with actionable strategies, not just hype, to help them leverage AI responsibly and effectively into their Dynamics 365, Modern Work and Power Platform environments.”
The Microsoft partner ecosystem is also vital to the growth, development and adoption of Dynamics 365. These partners bring domain expertise and tailored solutions designed to further support digital transformation across industries based on specific business needs.
Covenant, for instance, recently helped the Illinois Mine Subsidence Insurance Fraud modernise its operations by replacing a legacy system with Dynamics 365 Business Central, Power BI and Microsoft Fabric. The project unified siloed data and automated claims and survey processes, seeing a 300 per cent reduction in the surveying team’s administrative burden.
As the Dynamics 365 platform continues to evolve, so too do the solutions developed by Microsoft’s partners. For example, partners such as Creospark, Formpipe, Melissa and M-Files are working to ensure that AI-powered CRM and ERP solutions remain responsive to real-world needs and are tailored to specific industries.
Together, Microsoft and its partner ecosystem are building a future where intelligent business applications allow every organisation to adapt, grow and thrive.
Partner perspectives
We asked a selection of Microsoft partners what solutions they are developing to help organisations get the most out of Dynamics 365
“Our solutions include omnichannel contact centres that unify customer interactions across chatbots, email, phone, social channels and more,” says Noorez Khamis, chief technology officer at Creospark. “The intelligent chatbots we are creating leverage Dynamics 365 integrated knowledge bases and Copilot Studio to deliver real-time, contextual responses that reduce service workloads while improving customer satisfaction.”
“As mandatory e-invoicing expands, so does your chance to boost your business as you become, and stay, compliant,” says Mike Rogers, executive vice president at Formpipe. “The combination of Lasernet and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance and Operations should ground your strategy. With Lasernet embedded in Dynamics, your accounts receivable team works in a single system, without subjecting vital financial information to far-flung workflows.”
“Our Business Transformation Suite (BTS) delivers three powerful modules to help organisations get the most from Microsoft Dynamics 365 and work smarter,” says Markus Bauten, business consulting manager at Konica Minolta Business Solutions. “Sales AI enhances customer engagement with churn prediction, sales forecasting and customer segmentation; ESG AI simplifies sustainability reporting through intelligent data mapping and compliance tracking; and Insights BI automatically provides accurate and consolidated key business data analytics via interactive dashboards.”
“At Melissa, we’re developing our address validation app for Dynamics 365 to empower organisations with superior data quality and efficiency,” says John DeMatteo, solutions engineer at Melissa. “By integrating global address autocompletion, Melissa Address Validation (MAV) cuts data entry time by 50-75 per cent, ensuring error-free CRM records.”
“M-Files helps organisations maximise Microsoft Dynamics 365 by natively storing content within Microsoft 365 using SharePoint Embedded,” says Yohan Lobo, senior industry solutions manager at M-Files. “This architecture enables seamless integration with Microsoft Copilot, allowing users to access AI-curated documents directly from Dynamics entities like accounts and opportunities. M-Files enhances collaboration through native co-authoring, automates governance, and ensures compliance within Microsoft’s security boundary.”
“It is time for merchandising and planning teams to break free from the limitations of legacy spreadsheets and disparate data,” says Kimberley McKinley, director of retail industry strategist at Microsoft. “Next-generation planning tools like Toolio deliver the agility and end to-end visibility required for buyers and planners to make smarter, faster decisions and spend more time driving strategy, not chasing data.”
Discover insights from these partners and more in the Autumn 2025 issue of Technology Record. Don’t miss out – subscribe for free today and get future issues delivered straight to your inbox.