Release wave 1: Transforming customer experiences with generative AI and Dynamics 365

Generative AI has left its mark on computing, and it’s only the beginning. The world of business applications will never be the same. For several years now, we have been iterating on and shipping copilot features in Microsoft Dynamics 365, and I’m pleased to announce our next wave of value.

And it’s coming out just in time. Today’s customers demand tailored experiences that cater to their individual needs. They expect businesses to be responsive on all communication channels and to treat each individual with knowledge of their overall relationship and journey. For example, recent research from LinkedIn found that over two-thirds of customers say they’re less likely to engage with sellers whose initial outreach isn’t tailored to them and their role.¹

On the heels of our Business Applications Launch Event (BALE), I’m thrilled to introduce some of the latest features being released over the next few months for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, Marketing, and Customer Insights.

Our new technologies and tools enable you to provide engaging customer experiences, standing out from the competition and building loyalty and trust. It makes your employees more productive and your customers feel more connected. Our latest wave builds on our most recent public releases, such as natural language AI generation through Copilot, and sets up Dynamics 365 business applications to become the game-changing opportunity for you to do more with less.

A unified approach to Dynamics 365 Sales, Marketing, and Customer Insights

A recent survey from Microsoft found that nearly 9 in 10 business users want to apply AI solutions to more tasks, so that they can focus on the work that really matters.² Our upcoming investments deliver this across the customer experience landscape. We bring together sales, service, and marketing through Microsoft Dataverse and Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, marry that with Microsoft 365 data, and apply Copilot generative AI. The result is cohesive end-to-end customer engagements that empower and connect your sellers.

Here are a few highlights coming with the 2023 wave 1 release and recently released capabilities to keep on your radar that were showcased at BALE:

• With Dynamics 365 Sales, navigating records in a database is no longer the norm, and now you can look at opportunities, accounts, and contacts and view both a list and a detailed view of the record. We call this focus mode. It’s a part of our overall vision to move from tracking tools to tools that help sellers get their job done. With focus mode, sellers can prioritize engagement and optimize their workspace, reducing overall clicks to get work done. We introduced text message embedded within Dynamics 365 so you can engage customers through text in Dynamics 365 on customers’ preferred channels. When working opportunities, the new pipeline view experience is the default experience to quickly view and manage the sales pipeline. Deals will also see an updated smart organization chart to view and manage stakeholders. Finally, release wave 1 will showcase the power of Dynamics 365 Copilot generative AI to assist sellers in meeting preparation, meeting follow-up, and proposals. See the release plans for Dynamics 365 Sales.
• With Microsoft Viva Sales, included at no additional cost in Dynamics 365 Sales Enterprise and Premium, a monthly cadence of improvements to Copilot capabilities are reimagining the way salespeople work starting with AI-generated email replies, proactive insights, summarization, and search. With the latest Outlook calendar integration generative email replies can propose meeting times. Beyond Copilot, an exciting new Microsoft Teams collaboration experience will help connect sales teams and customers in a shared Teams workspace. Salespeople can become trusted advisors to customers, and information can flow through shared files and chat, all linked back to the sales opportunity record for instant updates. Full support for out-of-the-box and custom customer relationship management (CRM) entities will enable organizations to configure the entire experience, and Teams meeting enhancements include CRM integration as well as real-time tips and suggestions. See the release plans for Microsoft Viva Sales.
• In Dynamics 365 Marketing, users can use new copilot features to create engaging emails and define segments using natural language. To generate higher quality leads, users can build modern forms using an intuitive form experience, prioritize leads with the new lead scoring builder, and engage sellers at the right time. The out-of-the-box dashboards make it easy to track pipeline developments and analyze the impact and contribution of journeys, marketing messages, and content. When a marketing campaign hits your customer’s inbox, your sellers can immediately reference a copy of the email and start connecting for more opportunities. Explore the release plans for Dynamics 365 Marketing.
• Dynamics 365 Customer Insights accelerates customer understanding to know your customers deeply and accurately. Users can understand their data quality more deeply with a data quality score, automatically see which out-of-the-box predictions apply to their data, and seamlessly connect custom models from Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics. With Copilot in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, users can use natural language to have a dialog with their data to quickly get deep insights without the need for experts. Additionally, sellers can access relevant insights from within their flow of work to further personalize their conversations and close deals faster. AI-driven seller productivity gives your sellers an edge on every opportunity, all within the flow of their work, whether they’re talking to customers in Outlook or Teams or analyzing data in Dynamics 365. Explore the release plans for Dynamics 365 Customer Insights.

Real impact, real customers

Look at these inspiring case studies that demonstrate how our upcoming features can transform businesses:

• Greenreb AG, the exclusive Topgolf licensee for Europe aims to deliver an engaging golf and technology-infused leisure experience across Europe and in the United States. As a golfer, I certainly need to try them out! With Dynamics 365 Sales and Marketing, Greenreb can use its existing game data to create personally tailored marketing campaigns for each customer. With automated lead generation and no silos between sales and marketing, no customers fall between the cracks. The benefits of the scalability of Dynamics 365 is clear according to Phillip Fu, the CTO of Greenreb who explained that “[b]ecause we synchronize all our data in a Dataverse and have it on one platform, all departments get the same access to all the data in every system. We’ve bundled many functions in one product and can integrate further modules quickly.” To hear more from Phillip, you can read the full customer story.
• Lynk & Co, an automotive company that aims to disrupt the industry by putting the customer at the center of the experience. Embracing the latest capabilities from across Dynamics 365 has enabled it to scale its customer engagement quickly to half-dozen countries across Europe with a small team. Sign up here for access to a video from BALE that highlights how the latest Dynamics 365 release can help the Lynk & Co team prepare for an upcoming event—Planet First Eco-Drive, with a simplified data-informed campaign that uses natural language to query customer data and identify the best audience for upcoming events. To hear more about Lynk & Co and their experience with our business applications, you can access the fireside chat here.
• OBOS is a Nordic leader in housing and financial services—not only in the development and sale of homes and properties, but banking and financial solutions, property management, and real estate brokerage. As a co-op, with its clients also being owners, breaking down silos to deliver a cohesive experience across projects and businesses is critical to both customer retention and employee effectiveness. You can read more about how it was able to transform its business using Dynamics 365 Sales, Marketing, and Customer Insights in the customer story.

Join the Dynamics 365 community on this journey

These innovations are just a small part of what is coming in this wave release. Our goal is to help your employees be more effective and provide your customers with amazing experiences. With generative AI capabilities through Copilot, your teams can do more with less and focus on higher-impact work. Don’t wait to get started—the world is changing now. Many AI capabilities are available now, and we’re seeing many companies shortcut standard CRM rollouts and we have more coming over the following months.

I value your feedback and look forward to hearing how these tools have improved your customers’ and employees’ lives. Connect with me on LinkedIn for more updates and insights, and be sure to share your stories of success with generative AI on our Dynamics 365 Communities platforms. Let’s create better solutions together!

Learn more about generative AI and Dynamics 365

To learn more about all the innovations coming with generative AI, or to see some of the other announcements from BALE, check out these other articles:

• Copilot in Dynamics 365 Marketing and Customer Insights
• New Sales capabilities in 2023 release wave 1
• New Marketing capabilities in 2023 release wave 1
• Release wave 1 expands agility, automation, and innovation across Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Power Platform
• Access all BALE event recordings here

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¹LinkedIn State of Sales Report 2022.

²Four Ways Leaders Can Empower People for How Work Gets Done, Microsoft WorkLab.