Community Summit North America 2026: Humans and AI agents can co-exist, Microsoft tells Dynamics, Power Platform customers

Community Summit 2026 began with a reminder that Microsoft’s Dynamics ERP and CRM customers face a variety of urgent challenges that don’t always align with today’s AI headlines. 

Microsoft VP of Dynamics 365 ERP Georg Glantschnig challenged customers to think about new types of business process transformation supported by Microsoft’s AI-based solutions that can be delivered in a scalable, outcome focused way. But customers who took the stage alongside Microsoft officials and partners, told a broader story of familiar IT challenges like modernizing core systems, deploying ERP globally, and reaching for data harmonization goals that they believe will enable future investments in business performance, including with analytics and AI.

At Everon, makers of security, video, fire, and life safety solutions for businesses, the IT team led by CIO Ryan Fritts has just emerged from a twelve-month initiative to replace multiple enterprise systems following their carve-out from ADT and acquisition by GTCR in 2023. In addition to replacing their ERP and CRM with Dynamics 365 solutions, they were also replacing HR, commissions calculation, and more. 

Their move away from legacy systems offered an opportunity to address goals like the creation of a new and more optimized processes for supporting their future M&A plans, with Everon as the platform company.

Fritts explained that, beyond their intense year of system migrations, he sees their investments in data quality and automation as key to the future. AI could have a role to play in non-traditional automation that is not already handled by tried-and-true technologies like traditional workflow tools, he explained.

I'm really big on intentionality. It's about trying to build the strategic roadmap of where you want to be. And it's not saying that the end result never changes. It changes constantly every quarter, refreshing where we think we're going to aim and making intentional decisions on where we're going in the short term to build to that longer-term business. It’s sitting down with the business teams [to look at] their processes. RPA was a big shift where you have these highly structured triggers and data and well-defined workflows.

And with AI, the automation opportunities are non-traditional business workflows. So, we're doing things now with [for example] compound call scheduling, which the business would never [know to ask for in the context of automation]. So a lot of it is just trying to dive in and … show that incremental vision and get everybody aligned to it.

At global equipment manufacturing conglomerate Barry-Wehmiller, VP Bonnie Duddlesten, has been at the forefront of the company’s push to deploy Dynamics 365 F&SCM for corporate finance, including treasury, product lifecycle management, and invoice automation. Speaking at Community Summit, Duddlesten explained that they invested in D365 to deliver core benefits like a faster close and clean data. Those goals will become even more important as they work to expand the solution to more locations, like a packaging plant in Wisconsin that is next in their deployment plan. 

And their data cleansing initiative will extend to other systems, Duddlesten explained: