DynamicsMinds 2026: Microsoft’s headless services vision, ERP ‘middleware’, and an appeal for human values

MSDW Insight: Microsoft's AI vision for business applications will take time to gain credibility. In the meantime, the DynamicsMinds organizers offered a human-first experience, encouraging users and partners stay grounded amid forces of change.

Microsoft reported 22% overall revenue growth for Dynamics 365 last quarter, but Dynamics ERP saw year-over-year growth of 27% in FY2026 Q3 according to Microsoft CVP Georg Glantschnig, who spoke at DynamicsMinds 2026 this week. And Dynamics 365 AI ERP, which represents the portfolio of enterprise-grade D365 Finance and Operations applications, now has 14,000 customers, he revealed.

The company rarely shares customer counts for Dynamics 365 F&O. At this time in 2018 they had 2,100 customers, which would put their average customer base growth at about 1,490 customers per year over that time.

While growth offers reassurance to customers and partners, the DynamicsMinds audience also heard the bigger picture story from Microsoft about what the future holds. In a world where AI creates uncertainty for many IT professionals, both personal and professional, the organizing team behind DynamicsMinds 2026 took the opportunity to offer a different perspective on where enterprise software is headed.

A call for values-based progress

For a point of reference, Ana Gligorijevic, CEO of Docentric, the organizers of the event, reminded the audience that the team’s inspiration for 2026 was Star Trek. The ideals of the crew on the USS Enterprise and the challenges they faced as they encountered other beings and cultures offered an interesting metaphor for AI in our current times. Here’s a bit of her keynote message:

In Star Trek, there was also a principle called the Prime Directive, perhaps the most beautiful idea in Star Trek. A very simple principle: Just because you can… doesn’t mean you should do it. The Enterprise could interfere, control, dominate, and impose their technology everywhere. But they believed that power should be used carefully, and guided by values.  

Maybe it’s time for Planet Earth to define its own AI Prime Directive: People First. Let’s not do something just because we can. Let’s think about consequences. Let’s discuss ethical aspects of the technology we are building. Because the future is not only about how powerful our AI becomes. It is also about which values guide us… and which people we choose to be. 

This message of humanity and shared values provided a useful counterpoint at an event where Microsoft’s vision for AI-based enterprise application still leaves many questions to be answered, given the lack of grounding and evidence from real-world outcomes. Some people and groups do seem likely to benefit from the advances Microsoft and other vendors promise: executives and shareholders first, and perhaps workers and customers in some cases (but probably not others). 

But the worrisome outcomes and externalities remain, like the prospect of job cuts, data center pressures, concerns about AI compute costs, uncontrolled energy demands, environmental damage, and a general fear that it is making lives and work experiences generally worse.

Microsoft’s top line message: Adaptive experiences built on headless business services and agents 

Attendees saw and heard Microsoft’s vision at DynamicsMinds 2026, with a consistent message that the future of business applications will dispose of traditional SaaS web interfaces to become a collection of adaptive experiences atop a collection of agents using MCP and supported by Work IQ with a set of headless Microsoft Dynaimcs business services. 

Execution of work and the use of data tools will be done within the “Agent Foundation” by agents built in Copilot Studio and governed with Agent 365. “Copilot Adaptive Experiences” will be focused on M365 Copilot, productivity apps, or new lightweight interfaces built to suit roles and teams.

Microsoft’s portfolio of 1^st party agents continues to extend across the apps, and even the Dynamics 365 product teams seem to be challenged to provide a full list. Microsoft representatives at DynamicsMinds noted varying sets of the agents they have for D365 Finance and Supply Chain Management. They included: 

• Account Reconciliation
• Procurement
• Schedule Operations
• Expense, Time, (listed together and separately)
• Approvals
• Supplier Intent
• Financial Recognition
• Account Reconciliatoin

And the F&O team has more agents planned. Some of those mentioned covered accounting policies, cash management, budget management, and recording financial transactions. 

The enterprise focus on 1^st-party agents extends to Dynamics 365 and D365 Customer Service and Contact Center, which each have at least five on offer. Microsoft also offers a set of freely available but unsupported agents for F&SM from the FastTrack team. Available on GitHub, customers can examine them as a starting point when designing their own agents. The set includes agents for batch monitoring, compliance, sales orders, inventory fulfillment, and more.

High Hopes for Copilot Cowork

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