Lifetime Products rebalances work with Microsoft Copilot Studio

A global manufacturer puts people at the center of AI

Lifetime Products manufactures residential basketball systems, tables, chairs, and outdoor equipment used across the United States and in approximately 100 countries around the world. According to John Bowden, Global CIO at Lifetime Products, the company’s AI approach has evolved over time, starting with standard tools and becoming more tailored as teams learned what they needed: "Lifetime started our AI journey quite a while ago, more than a couple of years ago. We began with out-of-the-box agents and that's evolved into more custom agents, particularly with Copilot Studio."

That evolution now spans Microsoft Copilot Studio, Microsoft Power Automate, Microsoft 365 Copilot, Microsoft Foundry, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance, and Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management. Lifetime uses out-of-the-box agents to support core ERP processes, and builds custom agents when teams need solutions aligned to how their work operates.

The company’s AI strategy is anchored in a word it uses internally: rebalance. When an agent delivers measurable value, IT, HR, business leaders, and the relevant team come together to understand the time saved and decide how employees can be upskilled, moved into new roles, or freed to focus on high-value work.

When manual work crowds out the work that matters

Across the business, teams were spending time on work that was necessary but highly repetitive. Retail store managers and assistant managers across nine stores came in early to close orders, reconcile the previous day’s activity, and prepare inventory for the day ahead. As Sinahi Lopez, Global IT Functional Manager at Lifetime Products, explains, “Our store managers and assistant managers would come in and manually close out orders in F&O, reconcile the day from the night before, and make sure inventory was accurate for the day.”

Similar patterns appeared in other functions. HR and payroll teams answered handbook and policy questions by phone or in person. Customer service representatives had to search four or five systems for product, customer, inventory, dimensions, and parts information. Supplier and accounting teams were exploring ways to automate communication, purchase order follow-ups, ship dates, and account reconciliation.

Adoption was as much a people challenge as a technical one. "User adoption of AI is definitely the biggest struggle," Lopez says. In a manufacturing company, where automation has changed work before, Lifetime needed to show that AI was not about labor reduction, but about creating new opportunities.

Working alongside Microsoft and partner Argano, Lifetime established the initial AI use cases, governance approach, and technical architecture that created a foundation for scaling automation and agent-based solutions across the business.

Yogesh Kasat, Principal, Argano explains that "Successful AI transformation starts by proving value quickly and scaling what works. At Lifetime Products, the close collaboration between Lifetime, Microsoft, and Argano has helped drive adoption and create a foundation for continued innovation."

Out-of-the-box agents and custom agents working side by side

Lifetime began with out-of-the-box agents, including supplier communication and account reconciliation and then expanded into custom agents, when teams needed more specific solutions. As Lopez says, "Going into Copilot Studio has helped us create custom agents that are a niche in our area."

Argano helped Lifetime translate those early opportunities into a practical roadmap, identifying where Microsoft Dynamics 365, Power Platform, and Copilot Studio could be applied first and then extended across additional business functions.

Overnight retail order automation

One of the first custom scenarios focused on retail operations. Using Power Automate patterns, Lifetime moved retail order closing to run overnight while employees sleep. The process supports order flow and accounting handoff without store teams manually completing the same steps each morning. The scenario built on the initial process and architecture work completed with Argano, which helped connect the automation opportunity to Lifetime’s broader Dynamics 365 environment.

HR self-service agent

HR followed with a self-service agent built from employee and supervisor handbooks. Employees can ask common questions such as how PTO accrues or what a policy covers, without calling HR or visiting the HR office. The agent reduced routine HR and payroll inquiries and helped make AI feel practical and approachable.

Customer service knowledge agent

Lifetime is also building a customer service agent that brings together product lifecycle data, Dynamics 365 information, inventory data, dimensions, parts, and customer information. The goal is to give customer service representatives faster answers in one place, rather than requiring them to search across multiple systems.

Lifetime TAX Knowledge Agent

Lifetime's finance teams use this agent for tax inquires, rather than paying costly consulting fees or spending hours searching through caches of files and data. 

Zero-touch orders and a rebalanced workforce

The most visible operational change appears in retail. Store managers and assistant managers previously spent two to three hours each day manually closing orders, reconciling the prior day’s activity, and preparing inventory for the day ahead. As Lopez says, "With AI, we were able to automate that process. So now that happens while they’re sleeping." Instead of starting the day with those repetitive tasks, store leaders can now use that time each day for higher-value work, including selling more products and serving customers.

Another metric makes the change concrete: Lifetime moved from manually touching 50 to 80 retail orders each day to zero. Lopez describes these orders as "completely touchless," turning a daily manual routine into an overnight automated process.

The workforce impact matters just as much. "We've been able to rebalance, in the two years, 45 employees into new roles that give them a lot of opportunity for their family and their career," Lopez says. For Lifetime, AI value isn’t complete until the company understands what happens to the people whose work changes.

Bowden connects that practice to Lifetime’s mission: "Part of our mission statement is to offer opportunities for our people." That mission shapes how Lifetime talks about AI, how HR supports adoption, and how business teams trust transformations led by people who understand their work.

What's next: accuracy, faster service, and personal productivity

Lifetime has four pillars in its strategy with AI: "one is around business systems, specifically around Dynamics 365 and how we implement out-of-the-box agents. Explains Bowden. "The second pillar is upskilling our employees to make sure that they have the proper training to work with agents and to deal with new parts of their job. The third part is where we're headed now, which is personal productivity agents., and the fourth is Copilot Cowork to automate and execute tasks while keeping humans in the loop."

Lifetime is also looking to use AI to improve accuracy, reduce chargebacks, and ensure data is entered correctly. Customer service remains a priority, with the goal of reducing call handling time, preventing repeat calls, and helping representatives answer customers faster from a single place.

The Microsoft partnership remains part of that process, with Lifetime continuing to build on a foundation of Dynamics 365, Power Platform, and AI foundation established through its work with Microsoft and Argano. Bowden says, "Lifetime and Microsoft go way back. Our partnership is over 25 years old, and we've worked through really exciting and innovative things together." Lopez adds that Microsoft FastTrack and CXG teams helped Lifetime move past technical and process challenges as the work evolved.

Bowden’s advice to other companies is simple: start somewhere, introduce the first agent, upskill employees, measure productivity, and build from there. At Lifetime, momentum comes from showing value in real work and helping people grow alongside the technology.