News

Microsoft Adding More Copilot AI Perks To Dynamics 365

• By Gladys Rama
• November 15, 2023

Microsoft's flagship CRM suite already has Copilot AI hooks, but a few more were announced at the Ignite 2023 event this week.

Microsoft introduced Copilot for Dynamics 365, Microsoft's AI capability for its CRM and ERP products, earlier this year. Since that time, "more than 130,000 organizations have experienced Copilot capabilities in Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform first-hand," wrote Emily He, head of Microsoft's Business Applications group, in a blog post Wednesday.

Microsoft is now adding two new separate Copilot AI products -- Service and Sales -- to "unlock the value from a range of systems of record," on top of updates to the existing Copilot for Dynamics 365 product.

New Copilots for Service and Sales
The two new Copilot products are Microsoft Copilot for Service and Microsoft Copilot for Sales, which can be used with non-Microsoft and Microsoft CRM products.

Copilot for Service, designed for contact center and customer service teams, will reach general availability in early 2024 at $50 per user, per month.

According to a blog by Jeff Comstock, head of Dynamics 365 Customer Service at Microsoft, this new offering "synthesizes vast amounts of data already available from an organization's trusted knowledge sources to provide relevant, timely guidance to agents in their flow of work. Copilot for Service provides flexibility for organizations to quickly begin realizing the benefits of generative AI by extending their existing investments in CRM and contact center solutions -- including Dynamics 365, Salesforce, ServiceNow and more."

Meanwhile, Copilot for Sales -- meant for, as its name suggests, sales teams -- will become generally available in the first quarter of 2024 at $50 per user, per month.

"Copilot for Sales enables sales teams to harness the benefits of generative AI in their seller workflows, leveraging customer data in the CRM they already use, as well as information in documents, email and chats from Microsoft 365 applications," He wrote.

Copilot for Sales actually reached general availability back in July, when it was called "Microsoft Sales Copilot in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales." That product name itself had been a rename from "Viva Sales," Microsoft had explained back in July.

Both Copilot for Service and Copilot for Sales include access to the Copilot for Microsoft 365 product.

Improvements for Frontline Workers
For frontline and field service workers, Microsoft is introducing several enhancements. First is Copilot in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Guides, designed primarily for users that work with complex factory floor machinery and industrial equipment. Tapping into Microsoft's existing mixed reality technologies using headsets, Copilot in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Guides "enables workers to ask for relevant information using natural language and human gestures such as looking and pointing," according to a Wednesday blog post.

"Copilot uses generative AI to search for information from technical documentation, service records, training content and any other data sources that customers curate," Microsoft explained. "Copilot then summarizes the information to provide interactive guidance through content and holograms overlaid on the equipment in operation or maintenance."

Copilot in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Guides is in private preview as of Wednesday. A future public preview (availability still to be announced) will extend the offering to HoloLens 2 and mobile devices.

Microsoft is also updating the Dynamics 365 Field Service product with more AI capabilities, many to hit preview or general availability this December. They include:

• The general availability of the Dynamics 365 Field Service app for Microsoft Teams.
• The ability to find work order details using natural language queries.
• Natural language capabilities in the Dynamics 365 Field Service mobile app and Outlook add-in.
• Real-time syncing between Dynamics 365 Field Service, Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management.

Other Dynamics 365 Updates
Natural language capabilities in Dynamics 365 Sales are now available in preview.

In addition, coming to preview in December is an AI capability in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights that can quickly surface customer information such as "demographic, transactional, behavioral, and analytics data."