Biz Apps Partner Executive Summit 2025: Microsoft urges partners to embrace AI internally to win in the market

MSDW Insight: Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 goals in FY26 require partners to go deep on their own understanding of AI tools and services.

Business Applications partners should be pushing to layer AI offerings into their deals in FY26, but first they need to know what they’re selling.

Microsoft speakers at the opening afternoon of the Biz Apps Partner Executive Summit 2025 in Bellevue, Washington urged partner to understand and use Microsoft’s AI tools, from M365 Copilot to D365 pre-built agents to Copilot Studio and MCP servers. And from there, they should be including these tools as elements of new deals, supporting the goals of Microsoft’s new AI Business Solutions group.

The new unit represents, at least in part, Microsoft’s new effort to tie Business Applications partner sales to the much larger M365 sales channel. The concept draws a throughline from M365, M365 Copilot, and Copilot Chat to the use of Copilot Studio for custom agents and then to the Dynamics 365 application suite, including its portfolio of pre-built agents.

Microsoft CVP for Business and Industry solutions Satish Thomas told partners that the rise of AI at Microsoft is going to coincide with a golden era for Dynamics 365.

“It's about the application, it's about the platform, it's about the extensibility, and it's about a lot of the work that you do as a partner ecosystem in terms of building and also delivering alongside our customers,” Thomas said. “And this is where we believe we're uniquely positioned to lead and run with this transformation collectively.”

Thomas said Microsoft’s work to provide pre-built agents for Dynamics 365 solutions is a key advantage that partners should embrace. Whether they use Microsoft’s agents or their own, he explained that he views agents as a key differentiator that will win Microsoft market share as AI-first business applications gain traction. He compared it to the race to build out smartphone app marketplaces fifteen years ago. 

“I fundamentally believe the world has changed, the industry has changed, and the business application ecosystem that wins and thrives in this AI world is going to be the one that can say there's an agent for that,” he said. 

Alexandre Pombre, Microsoft global sales leader for advanced workloads in business process, told the audience that Dynamics 365 ERP solution growth can be described as “large and fast” in the double-digit range. He also described Business Central’s growth as “stunning” and pointed out that D365 Finance and SCM now have solution plays that are realistic for the upper enterprise, competing with SAP and Oracle and already winning deals.