Directions 2026: What the latest announcements tell us about the future of Business Central

AI was unsurprisingly one of the biggest themes coming out of Directions EMEA 2026. But perhaps the more interesting story isn’t simply that Microsoft is adding more AI capabilities to Dynamics 365 Business Central. It’s how quickly those capabilities are beginning to change the way people interact with ERP altogether.

Following the event in Paris, we caught up with Duncan Kerr, Product Lead for Business Central at Pragmatiq, to get his perspective on what he saw and heard at Directions, the announcements that stood out and what they could mean for organisations using Business Central.

For Duncan, one thing was particularly clear:

“For a few months, probably even 12 months, I’ve been talking about how people interact with ERP and how it’s going to change massively. It’s here already.”

And that feels like an important place to start.

Watch our Directions 2026 debrief

Hear Duncan’s take on the Directions announcements, what caught his attention at the conference, and his thoughts on the future of Business Central.

Changing the way we interact with ERP

Traditionally, getting something done in an ERP system requires a certain amount of knowledge about how that system works. Users need to know where information sits, which pages to navigate to, which filters to apply and which process to follow.

Copilot starts to change that relationship.

Microsoft has been progressively introducing natural-language experiences into Business Central, allowing users to ask questions about their business information rather than having to find and interrogate that data manually. Microsoft gives examples ranging from finding a recent sales order to identifying which customers received the most discounts, with the information available to Copilot remaining governed by the user’s existing Business Central permissions.

Duncan shared a simple example that brings this to life. Imagine an auditor asks for every sales invoice over £10,000 from the previous financial year. Previously, someone needed to know where to find that information in Business Central and how to apply the correct filters. Increasingly, they can simply describe what they need:

“Show me all the sales invoices over £10,000 from the last fiscal year.”

On the surface, that might seem like a relatively small change. In reality, it represents a very different user experience. Instead of starting by asking“How do I do this in Business Central?”, users can increasingly start with“What am I trying to achieve?”

And Microsoft is already taking that idea a step further.

From finding information to getting work done

One of the developments highlighted around Directions was Edit with Copilot, which is designed to move Copilot beyond helping users find and understand information and towards helping them take supported actions in Business Central using natural language.

Duncan had already been experimenting with the capability when we spoke. One example involved asking Copilot to apply a 12.5% discount to an invoice. Rather than manually navigating into the record, finding the relevant field and making the change, the user describes the outcome, and Copilot uses Business Central functionality to help make it happen.

That progression from finding information to acting on information is significant because it begins to reshape what using an ERP system looks like.

And that same principle takes us naturally into another major area of Microsoft’s investment: Agents.

Where agents fit into the picture

Microsoft’s agents for Business Central are beginning to show how AI can move beyond assisting an individual with a task and start taking responsibility for defined parts of a business process.

The Sales Order Agent, for example, can analyse incoming emails, process supported attachments, check item availability, create or update quotes and orders, and prepare responses.

Those capabilities are continuing to develop. In the latest Business Central update, Microsoft lists the Payables Agent’s ability to process vendor credit notes as generally available, alongside new public-preview Expense Agent capabilities around trip-based expense reports and interim approvals.

What’s interesting isn’t necessarily each individual feature. It’s the direction these developments collectively point towards.

Processes that currently involve somebody moving between their inbox, documents and Business Central could increasingly have parts of that work handled by AI, with the person stepping in where their judgement, knowledge or approval is needed.

That opens up a much broader conversation about how businesses might redesign processes rather than simply make existing tasks slightly quicker.

And critically, the opportunity isn’t limited to the agents Microsoft provides.

Moving towards organisation-specific agents

Microsoft has continued developing Business Central’s Model Context Protocol capabilities, with its 2026 roadmap including enhanced MCP server capabilities intended to support agentic experiences.

That creates the potential for businesses and their technology partners to think beyond predefined AI scenarios and consider where agentic technology might support processes that are specific to the way their organisation operates.

The question therefore becomes less about which AI feature can we switch on? and more about where could AI genuinely improve this process?

Sometimes the answer might be one of Microsoft’s agents. In another situation, it could be an ISV solution, Power Platform or a more tailored agentic experience. Often, it could be a combination.

That distinction matters because AI shouldn’t be the starting point. The business problem should be.

Looking beyond Business Central itself

This broader view was something Duncan repeatedly came back to following Directions:

“It’s the whole ecosystem. It’s not just Business Central.”

Microsoft’s direction increasingly supports that view. Its Business Central plans have included a more unified Copilot chat experience consistent with Microsoft Copilot, bringing Business Central closer to the wider experience people have across Microsoft’s technology ecosystem.

Duncan described a scenario where someone could ask for information held within Business Central, work with that information in Excel and then bring in additional context contained elsewhere, such as a document held in SharePoint.

This starts to break down some of the traditional boundaries between applications.

Rather than users needing to think about which system contains the information they need and navigate there themselves, their experience can increasingly begin with what they are trying to understand or accomplish.

That wider direction can also be seen in the way Microsoft is bringing Business Central and Microsoft 365 Copilot closer together commercially, with new combined Business Central and Microsoft 365 Copilot Business bundles due to become available through CSP from January 2027 for eligible organisations.

The important point for us isn’t the licensing itself. It’s what that signals about Microsoft’s direction: ERP and AI are increasingly becoming part of the same conversation about how people work.

For organisations considering Business Central, that could mean discussing AI-enabled processes, automation and user experience from the beginning of a transformation rather than implementing an ERP system first and considering AI as something to layer on later.

A bigger toolkit for solving business problems

Alongside Microsoft, the wider Business Central ecosystem continues to play an important role.

At Directions, Duncan spent time with ISVs including Cosmos, Binary Stream, Yavrio and Continia, and saw how quickly specialist providers are developing their own products alongside Microsoft’s investment in AI.

AI doesn’t suddenly mean every business requirement should be solved using Copilot or an agent. Instead, organisations now have a broader toolkit available to them.

A requirement around expense management, project profitability, cash collection or reporting could potentially be addressed through native Business Central capability, an established ISV product, Power Platform, Copilot, an agent or some combination of those technologies.

In many ways, that makes understanding the business requirement more important, not less.

Rather than taking a technology and looking for somewhere to apply it, the conversation should begin with what the organisation is trying to achieve and then determine which parts of the Microsoft ecosystem are best suited to delivering it.

Amid all the technology, don’t forget the people

For all the innovation Duncan saw at Directions, one of his strongest reflections wasn’t actually about technology:

“We’ve got to remember the people, because that’s the important thing.”

It’s an important reminder because the pace at which technology can change isn’t necessarily the pace at which everybody will be comfortable adopting it.

Some Business Central users are already experimenting extensively with Copilot and AI. Others may still be building their confidence with Business Central itself and getting used to the processes that sit behind a new ERP system.

Those people aren’t going to adopt entirely new ways of working at exactly the same speed.

The introduction of AI therefore needs to be as much about adoption and change as it is about technology. Organisations need to help people understand where AI can make their jobs easier, where they remain in control and where their own knowledge and judgement continue to matter.

Microsoft’s own approach reinforces this, with human oversight built into its Business Central AI experiences and Copilot respecting the permissions users already hold within Business Central.

The technology might enable a process to change very quickly. Successfully bringing people through that change requires more thought.

What does this mean for the future of Business Central?

Perhaps the most interesting takeaway from Directions isn’t any individual announcement.

It’s how all of these developments come together.

Natural-language interaction changes how users find information. Edit with Copilot begins to change how they act on it. Agents can take responsibility for defined parts of a process, while extensibility opens up the possibility of creating AI experiences around an organisation’s specific requirements. And the wider Microsoft ecosystem means those experiences don’t necessarily have to begin and end inside Business Central.

It changes the conversation organisations should be having about ERP.

Previously, the question might have been:

“How do we configure Business Central to do this?”

Increasingly, the better question is:

“What’s the best way to solve this business requirement?”

The answer might involve Business Central, but it could equally involve Microsoft 365 Copilot, Power Platform, an agent, an ISV solution or a combination of them. And alongside those technology choices, it needs to consider the people who will ultimately use them.

That closely reflects how Duncan described Pragmatiq’s thinking: start with the requirement, understand the broader Microsoft ecosystem available and then identify the right combination of technology to deliver the outcome.

As the technology available to organisations becomes broader and more intelligent, the role of a technology partner needs to evolve alongside it.

For us, that’s less about simply implementing a system and more about understanding an organisation, the challenges it’s trying to solve and how the right combination of Microsoft technology can help transform the way it operates.

What could this mean for your organisation?

There’s a lot to take away from this year’s Directions announcements, but the real opportunity comes from understanding which of these developments could make a meaningful difference to the way your organisation works.

Whether you’re already using Business Central or considering what comes next, our team can help you make sense of the possibilities and where the greatest opportunities might be for your business.  To get in touch with our team, fill out the form below, email us at info@pragmatiq.co.uk or call 01908 038110.