Directions EMEA 2025: Microsoft zeros in on AI wins for Dynamics 365 Business Central

MSDW Insight: The launch of Payables Agent could signal a new level of interest from Microsoft in extending BC’s footprint. But its initial set of capabilities raise concerns with some experts.

The Payables Agent for Dynamics 365 Business Central is one of two larger AI features that will reach general availability this month. It’s also the one that Microsoft wants partners to push to all their BC clients that need AP automation. 

At Directions EMEA 2025, Microsoft announced the imminent plans for both the Payables Agent and the Sales Order Agent. They also took attendees through more of the current and future capabilities and limitations of the Payables Agent, along with the pricing and roadmap.

Unlike smaller scale “copilot” capabilities that can work within the context of Business Central user experiences to summarize data or otherwise help with a single task, agents aim to tackle an entire process like invoice management. When configured to operate in a customer’s BC environment, an agent can work semi-autonomously to removes steps from a manual process.

The first look at the Payables Agent this week at Directions focused on the strengths of the latest version. For example, BC team members on the keynote stage showed off the ability of the agent to identify the vendor and line items of an incoming PDF invoice received via email, then to categorize line items correctly as inventory, GL accounts, services, subscriptions, or fixed assets. And the agent can learn when corrected, they say. When a user changes a detail the agent had set, it should not make the same mistake again for invoices from that vendor.