AI transforms the way people work, the way every function operates, and the way businesses drive competition and growth. It’s also transforming the business application landscape as customers adopt Microsoft 365 Copilot as the UI for AI and agents for every business process. Nowhere is that more true than in sales. The combination of Copilot, agents, and human ambition can free time to focus on closing deals, help teams build a stronger pipeline, and drive new levels of profitability. That matters because in sales, time is money.

We’re announcing a new program—Microsoft AI Accelerator for Sales—to help more customers rapidly transform their sales organization with Microsoft 365 Copilot and agents, as well as two new agents—Sales Agent and Sales Chat—to help scale the team’s ability to nurture and close deals.

Read on for more information on each of these announcements.

AI Accelerator for Sales

We’re announcing AI Accelerator for Sales, an exclusive program designed to help more customers experience a new way of working with Copilot and agents, help transform your sales organization, and migrate off legacy CRM system vendors. This program includes:

• Microsoft 365 Copilot to empower every salesperson with an AI assistant.
• Prebuilt agents to accelerate time to value for common sales processes, including the Sales Research Agent, new to Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales, that uses deep research to help drive strategic decisions.
• Custom agents with Microsoft Copilot Studio to automate bespoke sales processes.
• Model fine-tuning by Microsoft AI experts, further tailoring AI models and agents to your unique business needs.
• Dynamics 365 Sales to manage customer accounts and drive sales from lead to close.
• White-glove engagement, working hand in hand with Microsoft’s AI experts.

This program will be available for eligible customers on April 1, 2025. Contact your Microsoft representative to learn more.

Customers are making the change

Customers are already realizing the transformative impact of Microsoft’s platform within their sales organization. Lenovo, a global powerhouse in technology solutions, has experienced a streamlined and shortened sales cycle and improved customer service and responsiveness, boosting productivity—and profitability.

 “We’re seeing the benefit of having one standardized system and a global view to all geographies’ activities. This is the foundation for Lenovo’s sales digital transformation—enabling better connections and an increase in sales productivity and actionable insights.”  

—Wei Bi, Business Strategy Senior Manager, Lenovo

Lexmark, a global leader in innovative, cloud-enabled printing, imaging, and Internet of Things (IoT) products, software, solutions and services set out for a sweeping transformation, looking to replace their legacy Salesforce system. With Lexmark’s migration to Microsoft’s platform, the company now has a unified, omnichannel platform that centered the customer experience, standardized service delivery systems, offered user-friendly interfaces, streamlined sales and account management and reporting, and increased efficiency.  

“There is magic in a single source of truth with standardized data. Data analytics, coupled with operational excellence, provides the level of service that only Lexmark can offer to customers, allowing real-time access to actionable data and insights to increase revenue generation and customer satisfaction.”  
—Billy G. Spears, Senior Vice President and Chief Product Delivery Officer, Lexmark 

New sales agents to help close more deals, faster

We’re also announcing two new agents that can free sellers’ time to focus on higher-value activities and help close deals.   

Sales Agent can research and prioritize leads, set up meetings, and reach out to customers. Sales reps can focus time on closing the biggest deals while the agent ensures that no lead is left behind. Sales Chat provides actionable takeaways from CRM system data, pitch decks, meetings, emails, and the web—so sales reps can spend less time digging and more time selling.

Both of these agents, which will be in public preview in May 2025, work with first-party and select third-party CRM systems and integrate with Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat. Learn more about the capabilities of these agents on the Microsoft 365 blog.

In addition, Customer Intent, Customer Knowledge Management, Case Management, Scheduling Operations, and Sales Order agents for Microsoft Dynamics 365 will be available in March 2025. Please note that use of these agents during public preview will require Copilot Studio capacity packs.

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Personalized customer engagement is no longer just an advantage; it’s an expectation. Sales teams are increasingly tasked with delivering real-time, tailored interactions across multiple touchpoints, all while managing a growing number of prospects and customers. The challenge is maintaining that high level of personalization without overwhelming the team or losing the quality of engagement. 

We see that many businesses encounter significant challenges when attempting to scale personalized interactions to meet the needs of a diverse and growing customer base. Traditional methods that worked well with smaller datasets and pipelines simply can’t keep up with the demands of a modern, fast-paced sales environment. Companies are looking for better ways to manage and orchestrate customer journeys to deliver relevant, personalized experiences at every stage. 

Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales

Elevate your customer experiences by personalizing them at scale. 

Learn more

The complexity of personalizing at scale 

Using outdated CRM systems or doing things manually often means sales teams have to send out generic messages that don’t really connect with individual customers. This makes the engagement feel off, and opportunities slip through the cracks. 

The main issue here is that most systems don’t provide real-time insights into what customers are doing. Without up-to-date data, sales teams end up reacting to customer actions instead of anticipating them. As the number of leads grows, it’s nearly impossible to maintain the kind of deep engagement needed to really connect with customers at every stage. 

Orchestrating seamless customer journeys with Microsoft AI-driven insights 

AI helps companies take a proactive approach to personalizing customer journeys. By analyzing customer behaviors in real-time and delivering actionable recommendations, AI gives sales teams the insights they need to anticipate customer needs and offer solutions before prospects even ask for them. 

Beyond insights, AI orchestrates the entire customer journey, helping to ensure that interactions across channels are cohesive and relevant. Whether a prospect first interacts with a brand through email, social media, or a sales meeting, AI helps to ensure that their journey is connected, personalized, and moves them further down the funnel. 

Dynamics 365 optimizes every step of the customer journey 

Let’s explore how AI-powered insights optimize key stages of the sales journey, enabling sales teams to focus on high-value tasks while still delivering tailored customer experiences.

Enhancing customer interactions with Microsoft 365 Copilot

Effective customer interactions are built on understanding the customer’s history, preferences, and current pain points. However, gathering that information can be tedious and fragmented when done manually, leading to inconsistent and incomplete preparation. 

With AI-generated opportunity summaries, sales teams can walk into every meeting fully prepared. Real-time insights about the customer’s journey—including previous interactions, product interests, and engagement history—help to ensure that each interaction is tailored to the customer’s needs. Instead of scrambling to piece together information, sales teams can focus on building relationships and delivering value from the outset. 

Investec is a great example here. By using Microsoft 365 Copilot for Sales, they have been able to improve their client relationships while saving about 200 hours a year. This allows them to redirect efforts from routine tasks towards providing a personalized customer experience. 

Streamlining post-sale engagement and follow-ups 

Maintaining customer satisfaction post-sale is critical for retention, but many organizations struggle with post-sale engagement. Inconsistent follow-ups or delayed CRM system updates lead to disengaged customers and missed upsell opportunities. 

AI-powered systems automate the process, ensuring timely follow-ups and engagement reminders. For example, sales reps can receive real-time notifications when a customer interaction is needed—whether it’s a check-in call, a product recommendation, or a renewal reminder. This automation helps to ensure that no opportunity falls through the cracks, supporting teams to strengthen customer relationships and increase long-term value. 

Just look at the work that Lynk & Co is doing to transform car usage by offering flexible options for customers to buy, borrow, or subscribe to vehicles. Using Microsoft Dynamics 365 customizable tools, they were able to quickly build an infrastructure that could create unique processes and drive highly personalized experiences. 

Creating a cohesive, multi-channel experience 

We know that customers engage across multiple channels—email, phone, social media, webinars, and more. Managing these touchpoints individually often results in a fragmented customer journey. Customers can feel disconnected from the brand if interactions on different platforms don’t align. 

AI-powered tools help orchestrate seamless interactions across channels, ensuring that customers receive consistent messaging regardless of how they choose to engage. Whether it’s a follow-up after a demo, a personalized offer via SMS, or an email post-webinar, AI helps to ensure that the message is both relevant and timely. Sales teams can manage more channels without sacrificing personalization, improving the customer experience and keeping prospects engaged. 

An interesting story here is Zurich Insurance Group. To optimize processes and handle increasing customer data, they chose Microsoft solutions, including Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, to help them find new ways to reach customers and shape customer journeys. As a result, they’ve been able to increase their lead quality by over 40%. 

AI’s role in optimizing customer journeys 

By continuously analyzing real-time customer behavior, AI provides sales teams with recommendations on what to do next—whether that’s sending a follow-up email, scheduling a demo, or offering a personalized discount. 

For sales leaders, this means moving beyond surface-level engagement to deep, data-driven interactions that anticipate customer needs. Rather than reacting to each customer interaction as it happens, AI supports proactive strategies that keep prospects moving smoothly through the sales funnel. 

Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Copilot: Delivering personalization at scale 

The challenges of scaling personalization can be daunting, but solutions like Dynamics 365 and Copilot allow businesses to turn customer data into actionable strategies, delivering relevant, personalized interactions from the first touchpoint to post-sale follow-up.  

With Dynamics 365 and Copilot, organizations are experiencing the following benefits: ¹ 

• 15% increase in revenue per customer journey. 
• 75% time savings on customer journey development.
• 50% reduction in physical marketing spend.

Here’s how Dynamics 365 addresses the key challenges of scaling personalized engagement: 

• Natural language data exploration. Sales teams can instantly access customer insights by asking questions in simple language, such as “Which customers are nearing their renewal date?”. This streamlines data access and empowers quick, targeted action.¹ 
• Segment creation with Query Assist. Easily create customer segments by describing desired traits, helping sales teams target high-value groups with precision.² 
• AI-assisted journey creation. Define customer journey goals in plain language, and Copilot builds personalized journeys across channels, boosting engagement and conversions.³ 
• Content generation and refinement. Quickly draft messages or emails with Copilot, using tone and key point inputs to tailor content. This speeds up customer response and helps to ensure alignment with brand goals.⁴ 

AI can scale personalized customer engagement  

When talking to customers, it is recommended that businesses consider personalizing engagement across their large pipelines. This can indeed be a major challenge, but with AI-powered tools like Dynamics 365 and Copilot, sales teams can effortlessly maintain meaningful, personalized interactions at every stage of the customer journey. By turning data into actionable insights, AI empowers companies to create proactive and tailored experiences that drive both loyalty and growth. Using AI allows you to scale engagement without sacrificing the personal touch, making it a valuable investment for enhancing customer relationships.  

Access the resources below to get started on your AI journey today. You can also stay connected on LinkedIn with more information about innovation and AI transformation. 

Sources:

¹ “Dialog with Data.” Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights Documentation. Microsoft, Inc., 2024.  

² “Copilot Overview.” Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights Documentation. Microsoft, Inc., 2024. 

³ “Use Copilot to Create a Journey.” Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights Documentation. Microsoft, Inc., 2024. 

⁴ “Content Rewrite.” Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights Documentation. Microsoft, Inc., 2024. 

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