Microsoft Dynamics Copilot is bringing new innovations to agents, salespeople, and CX experts. Announced in March 2023, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Copilot marks the next generation of AI updates across Microsoft’s ever-evolving tech portfolio.
According to Microsoft’s recent survey, 9 out of 10 employees now hope to use more artificial intelligence to reduce repetitive tasks in their jobs. Dynamics Copilot offers companies a way to empower their staff with tools specifically designed for sales, service, marketing, supply chains, and operations roles.
With this innovation, Microsoft will offer every Dynamics 365 user next-gen AI capabilities and natural language processing solutions. Copilot will work alongside business professionals, helping them to achieve their goals faster, collect insights, and drive better business results.
Here’s everything teams need to know about Microsoft Dynamics Copilot.
What is Microsoft Dynamics Copilot?
Since Microsoft introduced its generative AI solution, “Copilot,” built with Open AI technology, the company has been embedding the technology into virtually every aspect of its ecosystem. This intuitive AI technology empowers business users in various ways across the app landscape.
Copilot for Microsoft Dynamics brings the recent advancements in generative AI to the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) landscapes. Copilot is making its way into virtually every aspect of the Dynamics portfolio, including:
- Microsoft Sales Copilot: An all-in-one solution for sales teams, built on Microsoft Viva Sales, with AI for meeting summaries, clerical tasks, and email automation.
- Dynamics 365 Customer service: Copilot in Dynamics Customer Service drafts contextual answers to queries, offers interactive chat experiences, and enhances virtual agents.
- Dynamics 365 Customer Insights: An AI-powered solution for curating highly personalized and targeted customer segments using business data.
- Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing: Comprehensive tools for inspiring and guiding professionals in creating marketing content.
- Dynamics 365 Business Central: Copilot in Business Central streamlines the creation of product listings for commerce and integrates seamlessly with Shopify.
- Supply Chain Management: With Microsoft Copilot in Dynamics Supply Chain tools, customers can streamline logistics with predictive insights and data.
Microsoft Dynamics Sales and Copilot
Microsoft unveiled “Sales Copilot,” one of the core components of the Microsoft Dynamics 365 Copilot experience, in June 2023. Building on the foundations of Microsoft Viva Sales, which also offered access to Copilot features, Sales Copilot is a role-based solution for sellers.
The companion tool operates across Outlook, Microsoft Teams, and Dynamics 365 Sales. It can also integrate with other CRM systems, such as tools from Salesforce.
According to Microsoft, Sales Copilot saves employees time with task automation, auto-generated email and meeting summaries, and AI-powered insights into opportunities. Early results from beta tests show 85% of sellers report faster task completion, and 70% report higher productivity with Sales Copilot.
With this sales-focused toolkit, professionals can communicate with customers more effectively, using content suggestions to respond to emails and messages. There’s also a feedback mechanism that allows sellers to rate AI-generated content to refine future recommendations.
Plus, employees can use Copilot to automatically generate summaries of meetings, covering key topics, issues, and concerns in a conversation. The Azure OpenAI service even provides help with follow-up dates, action items, and more. Users can even prepare for customer meetings more effectively, with summary views of account information and real-time tips during calls.
Copilot for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service
Sellers aren’t the only professionals who can benefit from Microsoft Dynamics Copilot. The tech giant is also bringing its AI capabilities to the Customer Service landscape. Currently, in limited preview, Copilot for Microsoft Dynamics 365 customer service comes with many useful features.
According to Microsoft, businesses can use Copilot to turn agents into “super agents.” Users can craft draft emails and chat responses to customers with a single click. Plus, Copilot understands the context of live conversations and identifies relevant information to personalize the conversation.
Copilot can synthesize information from various environments and knowledge bases to suggest draft responses to agents. Plus, agents can ask Copilot for help diagnosing customer problems, discovering revolutions, and adapting responses into the right tone of voice.
As part of the Microsoft Dynamics Copilot experience for service teams, Microsoft also introduced generative AI abilities for Power Virtual Agents. These bots enhance the self-service experience, allowing customers to access solutions to problems rapidly.
The bots can use trusted websites and internal company data to craft responses. Businesses can also use “Nuance Mix” to take the CX strategy to the next level. This all-in-one solution combines Nuance, Azure, Microsoft Power Platform, Teams, and Dynamics 365 Customer Service.
With Mix, Microsoft says business leaders will be able to craft personalized experiences for agents and customers.
Microsoft Copilot for Marketing and Customer Insights
Also included in the Microsoft Dynamics Copilot portfolio are new AI-focused features for business insights and marketing. Microsoft said many marketers have often relied on data analysts to uncover insights for campaigns for customer data.
However, teams can find opportunities in seconds with Copilot in Dynamics Customer Insights. Using sample prompts, marketers can use natural language to explore and understand customer preferences and segments. The system can produce information about a segment’s average age, product preferences, purchasing prices, and more.
Teams can also use Copilot to create customer segments through “Query Assist.” This Copilot feature in Dynamics 365 Marketing leverages the OpenAI service for segmentation. Marketers can simply describe their target audience with natural language. The technology will then build segments with relevant data from the available ecosystem.
With Microsoft Dynamics 365 Copilot for marketing, employees can create content faster. With “Content Ideas,” marketers can transform topics into suggested copy for marketing strategies.
Plus, marketers can also prompt Copilot with 5 points to include when drafting an AI-driven email. The system uses Azure OpenAI to generate text suggestions that form a starting point for marketing emails. Both Query Assist and Content Ideas are currently available in public preview.
Business Central and Supply Chains
The Microsoft Dynamics Copilot experience also includes solutions for commerce companies and business leaders looking to optimize supply chains.
With Copilot in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central, users can leverage AI to create powerful product descriptions. The toolkit suggests copy for product descriptions tailored to each company with critical attributes and data. Users can also experiment with different lengths, tones, and structures for each description.
Plus, Business Central customers can seamlessly publish new descriptions to a Shopify store with just a few clicks. In the Supply chain, new Copilot capabilities for “Microsoft Supply Chain Center” are also emerging. These tools will help business users better predict supply chain disruptions and mitigate potential problems.
The “news module” proactively flags issues that might influence the logistics landscape, like bad weather or geo-political changes. Copilot can then turn these insights into action with contextual email outreach. Users can create custom, contextual replies to suppliers, identify new ETAs, and even re-route purchase orders automatically.
Looking Ahead with Copilot in Microsoft Dynamics
Microsoft’s Copilot technology is redefining efficiency and productivity in the business world. As the solution expands into the Microsoft Dynamics ecosystem, the benefits for companies will only continue to evolve. In fact, Microsoft has even made it easier to get started with AI-driven cloud solutions in the CX landscape.
In July 2023, Microsoft announced “Accelerate, Innovate, Move,” or “AIM.” This new program allows customers to accelerate their transition to the cloud and AI innovation. With AIM assessments, companies can rapidly define the value of transitioning to the cloud. Plus, they can get step-by-step guidance on how to move on-premises applications into the cloud.
With AIM, companies of all sizes quickly adopt and leverage the latest Microsoft Dynamics Copilot tools and a host of exciting innovations in the cloud.
FAQ
Will Microsoft Dynamics Copilot meet regulatory requirements?
Copilot for Microsoft Dynamics exists in the Azure ecosystem. This means it shares the same compliance standards as Azure. The system also adheres to Microsoft’s commitment to responsible AI. Microsoft says it will continue to invest in improving compliance in the future.
Does Microsoft Copilot protect business data?
Underscored by Azure OpenAI Service, the Copilot capabilities in Microsoft Dynamics feature built-in enterprise-grade security and responsible AI features. It’s built on Microsoft’s secure platform and is architected to protect individual, group, and tenant data.
How does Copilot use business data?
Copilot connects LLMs to your business data in a privacy-preserving format. Copilot can access content and context within Microsoft Graph and the Dataverse. This allows it to create more intuitive and personalized responses to questions. However, Microsoft does not use its customer’s data to train its LLMs.
