TL;DR: TMC Global attended the AI Business Solutions Partner Executive Summit in Renton, WA on July 29–30, 2026 — a closed event co-created with Microsoft bringing together 500+ Business Applications partners. The message from Microsoft was consistent: AI is moving from experimentation into the core of ERP, CRM, and Power Platform. Copilot is being built directly into the products you already use.
Agentic AI is unifying across the full business solutions stack. This post covers what we heard, what it means for organizations running Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Business Central, and what you should be thinking about now.
Table of Contents
- What did Microsoft say about the direction of Dynamics 365 and Business Central in FY27?
- What is agentic AI and what does it mean for organizations running Microsoft today?
- What is Work IQ and what does it mean for organizations already on Microsoft 365?
- What did the executive roundtable reveal about how AI is changing business models?
- What are the key FY27 Microsoft changes that affect your Dynamics 365 environment?
- What should organizations running Business Central or Dynamics 365 do right now?
- What we came back with and what it means for you
- Frequently Asked Questions
We just returned from Renton, Washington where TMC Global made its debut at the AI Business Solutions Partner Executive Summit. It was our first Microsoft partner conference as a unified company.
The AI Business Solutions Partner Executive Summit is a closed, partner-qualified event co-created with Microsoft where 500 Business Applications partners, ISVs, and systems integrators come together to hear FY27 strategy directly from Microsoft leadership. Our team spent two days in sessions with Microsoft executives, in conversations with fellow partners, and in a roundtable where partner executives had an honest conversation about what AI is actually doing to this industry. Here is what we heard and what it means for your business.
What did Microsoft say about the direction of Dynamics 365 and Business Central in FY27?
The headline from every session was the same: Microsoft is moving AI from a separate layer on top of your environment into the core of the products you already use.
Georg Glantschnig, Corporate VP for Dynamics 365 ERP Applications, outlined the shift clearly. The partner opportunity is no longer just implementing ERP systems. It is enabling what Microsoft is calling ‘intelligent operations’ across Finance, Supply Chain, Commerce, HR, Project Operations, and service applications. The goal is to move organizations beyond traditional digital transformation toward AI-enabled business operations.
Mike Morton, VP for Dynamics 365 Business Central and SMB, focused on how AI is reshaping the modern selling environment. His observation: sales teams currently spend roughly 70% of their time on administrative work and only 30% actually with customers. AI has the potential to flip that ratio. The capabilities to do it- account research, meeting prep, opportunity management, and forecasting are moving quickly from innovation projects into everyday business necessities inside Dynamics 365.
Watch the Microsoft keynote recap here.
What is agentic AI and what does it mean for organizations running Microsoft today?
The most significant shift in Microsoft’s FY27 strategy is the move from Copilot as an assistant to agents as autonomous executors. A Copilot responds when you ask it something. An agent monitors, decides, and acts based on conditions you set.
James Oleinik’s keynote covered agentic workflows and Agent365, Microsoft’s platform for AI agents in business applications. Microsoft is agentifying business processes across Dynamics 365, Copilot, and Power Platform.
Copilot assists. Agents act. The distinction matters because agents change how business processes run, not just how people interact with software.
For organizations running Business Central or Dynamics 365, this means the capabilities you are considering as separate AI investments today are being built directly into the products you already license. The question is whether your environment and your processes are structured to take advantage of it when it arrives.
This is not theoretical for TMC Global. Earlier this year we ran our first internal AI hackathon – two teams, fourteen hours and built two AI-powered tools entirely on the Microsoft stack. Both are now in testing on real internal work. We built internally first because we believe you cannot credibly help a client deploy AI if you have not done it yourself.
What is Work IQ and what does it mean for organizations already on Microsoft 365?
One capability that came up consistently at the summit is worth understanding specifically: Work IQ. Microsoft describes it as the intelligence layer inside Microsoft 365 Copilot. It knows how people work, with whom they work, the content they collaborate on, and the actual workflows they follow. When an organization builds AI agents on top of Work IQ, those agents operate with genuine organizational context rather than generalized pattern matching.
For organizations already running Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365, this matters because Work IQ connects those environments. An agent built on Work IQ can access mail, calendar, Teams, SharePoint, and Dynamics data with permission-aware, governed access. That means AI that actually understands how your business operates rather than one that approximates it.
Work IQ is not a new product to purchase. It is an intelligence layer that is part of Microsoft 365 Copilot. Organizations already invested in the Microsoft stack are closer to this capability than they may realize.
What did the executive roundtable reveal about how AI is changing business models?
On July 29, a roundtable brought together executives from ten Microsoft Partners and ISVs in the Microsoft channel to have an honest conversation about what AI is doing to their own businesses.
TMC Global’s CEO, Jennifer Harris, was one of ten executives invited to speak in front of approximately 500 CXOs and Exec VPs.
When asked about TMC Global’s most important AI initiative in the last 12 months, Jennifer pointed to a mindset shift. After years of delivering implementations the same way, the work was getting people to look at every engagement differently and ask what AI makes possible now rather than defaulting to what worked before. That kind of change is harder than any technology decision.
When asked whether the AI-First positioning is paying off economically, her answer was yes. TMC Global was at a specific size and moment where it could pivot and acquire in a way that larger firms cannot. That window does not stay open forever. Jennifer made two acquisitions to build out the full-stack vision for mid-market clients – ERP, CRM, Power Platform, and AI under one roof before that window closed. The conviction behind those decisions came from a clear view of where the market was heading and what mid-market clients would need from a partner.
The surprise she shared was not about technology. It was about people. The strongest AI champions inside organizations turned out to be people who had been in the industry for 25 years – the ones everyone assumed would resist. And some of the expected early adopters had already plateaued. The lesson: do not assume you know who will lead and who will lag when you roll out AI.
What came through across every executive in that room was that there is no single playbook for leading through this. A year ago most partners in this community said they were curious about AI. Now the conversation has moved to building and scaling. Everyone is adapting faster than they expected to.
Several themes came out consistently across different organizations and different business models:
- Delivery is changing. AI is reshaping the delivery lifecycle, expanding beyond development into requirements gathering, solution design, and implementation acceleration.
- The platform is catching up. The pace of capability change means standalone AI tools from months ago are now built into the platforms organizations already use. Adaptability matters more than any single tool.
- Iteration beats perfection. The organizations seeing the greatest AI impact are not getting it right the first time. They are experimenting, learning, and iterating.
The organizations making the most progress are not necessarily the ones with the most AI tools. They are the ones willing to take calculated risks, learn quickly, and adapt continuously. Several of the FY27 changes Microsoft announced at the summit speak directly to this.
What are the key FY27 Microsoft changes that affect your Dynamics 365 environment?
Several specific FY27 changes announced around the summit are worth understanding if you are running Microsoft Business Applications. TMC Global’s team came back from Renton with a clear view of how each of these affects our clients’ environments specifically.
Change | What it means for your organization
- Copilot moving into ERP | Copilot capabilities are being built directly into Dynamics 365 Finance, Supply Chain, and Business Central — not as add-ons but as core features
- Work IQ in Microsoft 365 | The intelligence layer that connects how your people work with how your AI agents act. Organizations on Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365 are already positioned to benefit.
- Agentic AI across business solutions | Microsoft is unifying agent capabilities across Dynamics 365, Power Platform, and Microsoft 365 — agents that act across your full environment
What should organizations running Business Central or Dynamics 365 do right now?
Make sure your environment is ready for what is coming before it arrives. That is exactly the kind of conversation TMC Global is built for.
The answer depends on where you are. Here are the most common situations and what we recommend for each:
If you are on Business Central and not yet using Copilot
Copilot features are available inside Business Central now and more are being added in FY27. The first step is understanding which features apply to your workflows and what data quality requirements they have. Most organizations find their data is not structured for AI use without some preparation work.
If you are on Dynamics 365 Sales or Service
The AI-assisted selling capabilities Mike Morton described — account research, meeting prep, and next-best-action recommendations are moving into everyday use. The organizations that will benefit most are the ones who have clean CRM data and consistent adoption across their sales team. If either is a gap, that is the work to do now.
If you are evaluating AI tools independently of your Microsoft environment
The pattern we saw repeatedly at the summit: capabilities that organizations purchased as standalone AI tools six months ago are now built into the Microsoft platform they already use. Before committing to tools outside your Microsoft stack, it is worth understanding what is coming inside it.
If you are not sure where to start
The most useful first step is a clear picture of where your current environment stands and what gaps exist between where you are and where you need to be. That conversation does not have to be complex.
What we came back with and what it means for you
AI is moving into the core of the Microsoft products your organization already uses. Business Central, Dynamics 365, Microsoft 365 – the capabilities being announced are coming into what you already have. The window to prepare your environment is now.
Across both days, the partners and executives in that room kept coming back to the same ideas: AI governance before deployment, internal transformation before client transformation, outcomes over tools. Those are not new ideas. They are the ones that separate organizations making real progress from the ones still experimenting.
The organizations that will benefit most are the ones working with a partner who understands how ERP, CRM, Power Platform, and AI connect to each other. That is what TMC Global was built to be. TMC Global brings together TMC, The TM Group, and PowerApps911 — ERP, CRM, Power Platform, and AI under one roof, specifically to serve mid-market organizations navigating exactly this kind of shift.
What your organization needs from a Microsoft partner in the next 12 months is someone who was in that room, understands what is coming, and is already working on it. That is what TMC Global is here to do.
Ready to understand where your Microsoft environment stands for what is coming? Talk to our team about the AI Activation Launchpad.
Frequently Asked Questions
What was the AI Business Solutions Partner Executive Summit?
The AI Business Solutions Partner Executive Summit was a closed, partner-qualified event held July 29–30, 2026 at the Hyatt Regency Lake Washington in Renton, Washington. It was co-created with Microsoft and hosted by Dynamic Communities, bringing together approximately 500 Microsoft Business Applications partners, ISVs, and systems integrators to hear FY27 strategy directly from Microsoft leadership.
What is Microsoft’s FY27 priority for Dynamics 365 and Business Central partners?
Microsoft’s FY27 priority is moving partners beyond ERP and CRM implementation into AI advisory, Copilot deployment, agent development, and business transformation. Microsoft stated that AI-first services will define the next wave of partner growth and introduced new incentive structures and certifications to reflect this shift.
What is the difference between Copilot and an AI agent in Microsoft’s platform?
Copilot is a user-initiated AI assistant that responds when prompted. An AI agent is event-driven and can act autonomously based on conditions set in advance. Microsoft is moving toward an agent-centric system of work where agents monitor, decide, and act across Dynamics 365, Power Platform, and Microsoft 365 without requiring a user to initiate each action.
What is Work IQ and how does it relate to my Microsoft environment?
Work IQ is the intelligence layer inside Microsoft 365 Copilot. It understands how your organization actually works — who works with whom, what content is being collaborated on, and what workflows people follow. AI agents built on Work IQ operate with real organizational context rather than guesswork. Organizations already running Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365 are positioned to benefit from it now.
Is my Business Central environment ready for Copilot and AI agents?
Readiness depends on several factors including data quality, process structure, and which Copilot features are relevant to your workflows. Most organizations need some preparation work before they can take full advantage of what Microsoft is building into the platform. A system review is the best way to understand your specific gaps.
What should I ask my Microsoft partner about FY27 changes?
Ask your partner whether they attended the Biz Apps Partner Summit or have direct relationships with Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 and Business Central product teams. Ask them specifically how FY27 changes affect your current licensing and what preparation work you should be doing now. A partner who cannot answer those questions specifically may not have the access or the depth the next 12 months require.
Key Takeaways
- AI is becoming core. Microsoft is moving Copilot and agentic AI into the core of Dynamics 365 and Business Central in FY27 — not as add-ons but as built-in capabilities.
- Work IQ is already in your stack. Work IQ connects your Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365 environments into a single intelligence layer for AI agents. Organizations already on the Microsoft stack are closer to this than they may realize.
- Iteration beats perfection. Organizations seeing the greatest AI impact are iterating continuously. Adaptability matters more than any single tool.
- Adoption surprises are real. Do not assume you know who will lead AI adoption inside your organization. The strongest champions are often the most experienced people, not the expected early adopters.
- TMC Global was in the room. Our team holds direct relationships with Microsoft’s Business Applications leadership and came back with a specific view of what FY27 means for our clients’ environments.
If you want to understand what FY27 Microsoft changes mean specifically for your environment, that is the conversation TMC Global is built for.