The integration of AI into customer relationship management (CRM) systems is reshaping business productivity tools. A new major arc in this ongoing transformation could be Microsoft Copilot Agents- autonomous AI assistants that Microsoft is hoping will provide a more concrete ROI on AI investment, a number that has been difficult for organizations to quantify until now.

Unlike traditional AI CRM tools that primarily assist with data entry or predictive analytics, Microsoft Copilot Agents can autonomously execute tasks, follow up on customer interactions, and even refine sales and service strategies dynamically.

Microsoft recently announced that Agents are now available to combine the power of AI in Microsoft 365 and in Microsoft Dynamics 365. Let’s explore Copilot Agents, what they are, how they work, and how you will be able to use them in your day-to-day business CRM operations.

The Microsoft Copilot Landscape

Currently, Copilot technology is built into Microsoft 365 applications and works alongside users and performs an action when queried. For example, you can connect with Microsoft 365 apps, like Excel to crunch numbers, use Word to create compelling content, or Teams to distill collaborative insights.

Copilot Agents are more than just automated chatbots. They have the capability to understand, process, and act on data in real-time and not just display programmed responses. With Agents, Copilot won’t sit idle waiting for queries, it will be able to automatically perform what have been traditional manual tasks. It’s a big change in the behavior of Copilot.

“We very quickly realized that constraining Copilot to just being conversational was extremely limiting in what Copilot can do today,” said Charles Lamanna, Microsoft CVP of business apps and platforms, in an interview with The Verge. “Instead of having a Copilot that waits there until someone chats with it, what if you could make your Copilot more proactive and for it to be able to work in the background on automated tasks.”

Microsoft is hoping that companies using Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365 will have many agents – ranging from simple prompt (ask)-and-response (answer), which is what we have now, to fully autonomous. Agents will work on behalf of an individual, team or function to run business processes, and are supposed to do everything from accelerating lead generation and processing sales orders to automating supply chain.

Dedicated Agents for Dynamics 365 CRM and Business Central

Microsoft is taking the Copilot Agents to its Dynamics 365 ERP offerings, announcing 10 new autonomous agents that are rolling out into public preview by early 2025. Collectively, they span sales, service, finance, and supply chain use cases. Let’s look at the CRM–related agents.

Sales Order Agent

For small to medium-sized businesses, the Sales Order Agent in Dynamics 365 Business Central will streamline how customers place an order, by automating routine sales order processing tasks to help sales teams focus on customer engagement and still ensure order accuracy and fast fulfilment.

The agent can correspond with a customer during the order intake process, from order entry to confirmation, taking into account available inventory and customer preferences. The agent does the bulk of the work, and salespeople only need to check the correspondence and sales quote before it’s shared with the customer.

Sales Qualification Agent

In Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, the Sales Qualification Agent can research your pipeline, constantly search for leads, prioritize inbound leads, and flag those that are most promising. The agent can also draft personalized sales emails to initiate a sales conversation that a salesperson can send with a single click.

Customer Knowledge Management Agent

Valuable insights from seasoned customer service representatives are often locked away in chat logs, call recordings, case notes, and other data silos. Until now, self-service tools relied on inflexible, hard-coded dialog with predefined knowledge for potential customer issues.  

The Customer Knowledge Management Agent can transform that experience ensuring that a knowledge repository is always up to date by continually analyzing case notes, transcripts, summaries, and other artifacts from human interactions to uncover insights and store the related learnings and documentation in a dedicated library.

When approved by a human, the agent can then send automated responses. The idea is that it will allow sellers the time to focus on engaging customers to move through the sales cycle faster.

Martin Schneider, Constellation Research:

“By completing these tasks incredibly quickly, companies can invoice and bill clients faster, close books faster, take payments faster and so on. This creates an immediate benevolent cycle of shortening sales and revenue collection and recognition cycles, which has the potential to increase cash flow and bottom-line metrics in significant ways.”

Creating Your Own Copilot Agents

You also can modify Microsoft’s pre-defined agents or create standalone AI agents from scratch to further leverage your own custom workflows and business data.

What’s A Custom Agent?

The powerful combination of AI in Copilot Studio, and automation through Power Automate provide the basis to create your own agents. These custom agents can be role and function specific; for example, it could be an agent helping IT support staff in their day-to-day administrative tasks, or an agent to help sales reps complete requests for proposals (RFPs) more efficiently. 

Agents can be built to flag certain scenarios for humans to review, which will be useful for more complex queries and data. The agents operate within the confines of the instructions and actions that are defined for the automated task.

Real-World Example: How Copilot Agents Enhance CRM Efficiency

So when would you create a custom agent? Let’s meet Alex, a busy sales rep at a B2B software company. To improve efficiency, his company implements a Copilot Agent built in Copilot Studio and integrated with Dynamics 365 Sales and Microsoft Teams.

Managing Pipeline Leads and Opportunities

Alex receives 30+ new leads daily, and manually reviewing each one takes too much time. A Copilot Agent can automatically score and qualify new leads based on AI analysis of past deal patterns and surface the top 5 high priority leads in Alex’s Dynamics 365 dashboard.

Following Up on Emails and Sales Calls

Alex has multiple ongoing deals and needs to send personalized follow-ups to potential clients. The Copilot Agent automatically generates a personalized follow-up email with Azure OpenAI Service, including a summary, answers to client questions, and a next meeting proposal. Alex makes minor edits and sends it; a process that used to take 15 minutes per client now takes under 1 minute.

Logging CRM Updates After Meetings

Alex needs to log meeting updates in Dynamics 365 Sales. The Copilot Agent listens in on Teams calls (with permission) and summarizes key insights directly into Dynamics 365. It automatically updates opportunity stages, next steps, and client concerns. Alex simply reviews and approves the update-no manual typing required.

Forecasting Sales Figures for Management

Alex’s manager wants a pipeline update. The Copilot Agent generates a real-time pipeline report using Power BI. It highlights deals at risk, upcoming renewals, and predicts revenue for the quarter. Alex shares the report with his manager in Microsoft Teams in just one click, without having to manually compile data.

Learn More

It’s estimated that 65 percent of businesses now use generative AI in their CRM systems, leading to a significant increase in sales goal achievement compared to those who aren’t using AI technologies, according to recent research.

At JourneyTeam, we work with our customers to reveal the full potential of Microsoft Copilot and Copilot Studio. We’ll guide you to develop a clear, actionable strategy for an AI-powered sales and customer engagement transformation by modernizing your CRM to Microsoft Dynamics 365. Check it out today.

When you work with JourneyTeam you get a strategic partner dedicated to helping you unlock the full power of Microsoft Copilot and Copilot Studio and use it to help drive new levels of business value. If you’d like to chat, reach out!